


Apartment 61

by TeaHouseMoon



Series: Apartment 61 series [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: 1980s, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, Divorce, Elio and Oliver are endgame, Elio has moved to New York, Elio is still in love with Oliver, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Infidelity, M/M, New York City, Period-Typical Homophobia, Reunion, Smut, sorry! but they'll be happy at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 38,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaHouseMoon/pseuds/TeaHouseMoon
Summary: The story picks up two years after the end of the film. Elio has moved to New York to go to college and to start a new life. He wants to forget about Oliver - but fate has different plans...*** Completed. ***





	1. Chapter 1

It’s a chilly evening in October, and when Elio finally gets home, it’s started to rain. A very thin, very light drizzle, almost invisible, but the kind that soaks you to the bone when you walk through it for too long.

Elio’s hair curls a little longer around his ears and on top of his head. He hasn’t cut it in a while, now. He shakes his head, a little bit like a dog, and rubs the soles of his wet boots on the rug just outside the entrance to his apartment building.

Even with the rain, and the grey skies, he’s loving New York.

He lives in a tall apartment building in Manhattan, a 10-floor complex that’s so different from his house back in Milan, or his parents’ villa in Crema. It’s new, but also old at the same time; the elevator creaks sometimes.

He shares the apartment with two other students, two guys - both American, although one from Indiana, the other from the West Coast. He’s been there only for a couple of weeks; his roommates seem nice enough. One, quieter than the other. But that works well for Elio.

He likes to spend time in his room transcribing music, and reading, anyway.

The school bag is heavy on his shoulders tonight, but he’s got some new books and he’s excited to start reading. He’ll make himself some soup once he gets in - he has Mafalda’s voice in his head, the day he left home to fly to New York, telling him, in Italian: make sure you eat - and then he’ll get stuck into one of his new purchases until he feels sleepy enough to go to bed.

As he walks towards the elevator - his apartment is on the 6th floor - someone bumps into him. Lost in his thoughts, Elio wouldn’t even have noticed, but the stranger apologises profusely, asks him if he’s okay, even though the collusion wasn’t even that forceful. His voice is, weirdly, familiar.

So Elio lifts his gaze; the stranger is very tall. Dressed in jeans, and a dark blue shirt. Blond hair; blue eyes. Eyes who are now looking at him, shocked.

Oliver.

_Oliver_.

Elio certainly needs a few good seconds to take a full breath. Oliver? Oliver. His Oliver. The man he fell in love with two summers ago, in his childhood home. The man who broke his heart, by leaving him behind to return to New England.

And now Oliver is here. In New York. In the lobby of that very same apartment building.

Elio still can’t believe it, has to blink hard to make sense of what he’s seeing. But then Oliver opens his mouth, and speaks, and there is absolutely no doubt that it’s him, he’s there, and Elio is not hallucinating.

“Elio?”

Elio doesn’t know what to say for a few long moments.

Despite his brain screaming at him to say something, to not stand there speechless, to react in some way, he can only stare at Oliver, until he takes a step back once the shock allows him to take stock of what’s actually happening.

“H-hi,” he stammers.

“Elio? What are you doing here?”

The expression on Oliver’s face is one Elio is unable to read properly right now. He’s surprised, but there’s a half-smile on his face - as if he doesn’t entirely mind, as if he’s already recovering from the news he’s just received. Elio wishes he could do the same, but his blood is currently pumping so fast through his veins that he feels his heartbeat as loud as an alarm.

“I - I live here,” he manages to answer, somewhat stupidly. He clears his throat, and looks Oliver over for a moment, notices the bags of groceries he is carrying in both hands.

He can instantly predict what Oliver is going to say next.

“Really? I live here too!”

Elio blinks, and feels a headache already starting to claw at his skull. How is this possible? And how is Oliver taking all of this so well?

They haven’t spoken since that fateful call, two winters ago. The one where Oliver told him he was getting married. The one with which Oliver had broken Elio’s heart into a thousand pieces.

It had taken Elio months to recover from that, just when he was starting to feel a little better after Oliver had left at the end of the summer. It had taken him months of pain, and sadness, and having to force himself to get up in the morning, get though school and through everyday life. Because he felt that he’d lost the love of his life, forever.

Oliver kept in touch with his parents but Elio had always refused to know anything about him. And now, this: Oliver appearing again, as if by accident, and revealing that he lives in the same apartment building as him. By accident.

Elio can’t believe it.

Once the surprise wears off, there’s anger; at fate, at the causality of events that brought them here.

Elio wanted to move on. Elio was supposed to start a new life.

“Great - great to know,” he mumbles, setting his jaw and trying to school his expression into neutral indifference. “Sorry. I have to go now.”

He needs to get out of there.

Without giving Oliver time to respond, Elio squeezes past him, and gets into the elevator, pressing the button for the 6th floor before either of them even has a chance to take a breath.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Elio sleeps restlessly.

Earlier, he tried to eat something, but his stomach wanted none of it. He tried to read in bed, hoping to tire his eyes, but his brain refused to concentrate on the words he was seeing. He had to re-read the lines twice or even three times, and soon, he got frustrated. So, he turned off his bedside lamp, and hunkered down under his comforter.

He doesn’t want to think. He knows where his thoughts want to go, and he needs to stop them. This was not supposed to happen.

He’s annoyed, he’s angry - but his heart beats a little faster every time his mind replays his meeting with Oliver.

In the morning, he’s tired, but he has to get up for school. He won’t let this whole thing distract him from the reason he came to New York City. From what he wants to do with his life.

As he leaves his building, his eyes want to look around in the lobby. He doesn’t let them, and stares straight ahead, at the sidewalk covered in orange leaves, at the cars whizzing by - at the rays of sun filtering down from a sky that’s less grey this morning.

 

 

 

 

When two days go by, and he doesn’t bump into Oliver again at all, Elio starts wondering whether he’s imagined the whole encounter.

On the third day he’s given an assignment to do over the weekend, and so he’s distracted again; on Monday, he comes back, exhausted but pleased about his day - and when he check his mailbox there’s a note for him.

Of course. His last name is on the buzzer; his last name is on the mailbox.

The note is in a sealed envelope, and Elio opens it quickly, when he’s still in the lobby, his curiosity piqued.

 

 

_I thought about this for the past few days, and I hope you don’t mind that I’ve finally gone ahead and left you this note._

_It was surprising - and nice - to see you the other day._

_I wondered if you’d like to meet up for a coffee sometime, and chat?_

_-Oliver_

 

 

Elio re-reads the message perhaps four times. His hands are shaking. The words are so non-committal, and yet he feels so on edge, with something he can’t describe.

His fist tightens on the piece of paper as he takes the elevator back to his apartment, and he goes straight to his room to stare at the words on it, smudged, in Oliver’s neat handwriting.

He’s surprised that Oliver has decided to try to contact him at all. He thought he’d forgotten all about him, to begin with, after his call, after he asked ‘do you mind’ as soon as he dropped that bombshell about getting married in the spring. He thought he’d forgotten about him all over again as soon as Elio disappeared behind the elevator doors last week.

He wishes he had the strength to just tear up that note and never think about it again - but he doesn’t. He wishes he didn’t still think about Oliver, still, after two years.

But the truth is that Oliver is always in his mind.

He’s the open wound that nothing seems to have managed to heal so far. He’s the first, and only person that Elio has fallen in love with.

Elio doesn’t know what to do, and he bites his lip, touches it with his index finger, as is his habit of doing when he’s thinking, thinking, trying to settle on a decision that seems wrong no matter which angle he examines it from. His fist still closed around that distressed piece of paper. He leaves it on his shelf, face down, doesn’t want to look at it anymore, and forces himself to leave his room - his roommates are in the kitchen, perhaps he can join them there, listen to their chit chat to try and distract himself.

He returns to his room a few hours later, eyes almost closing with tiredness. He undresses, down to his boxers. Just as he’s about to hide under his comforter again, he gets up, and looks over at the shelf where the note still lays. Real. There.

Elio picks it up, and places it under his pillow, and then curls up on his bed and turns his lamp off, forcing his eyes closed and his brain to stop, just stop thinking, at least for tonight.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments! I hope you like this chapter too. A bit of a slow burn at the moment.... :)


	3. Chapter 3

For two days, Elio doesn’t know what to do. He wonders what would happen if he just ignored Oliver’s note. Would Oliver try again? Would he send him another message - asking why he hasn’t responded? Would he try to meet him, somehow, by accident again?

Or would he just leave it be. Think that if Elio hasn’t replied, then he shouldn’t make more of an effort, he should let everything end there?

Elio doesn’t know what to do, but doesn’t want to ask for advice. The only people who know are his parents, really, and he doesn’t want to seem weak to them - like he’s fallen for Oliver’s charms again, once more waiting for him and reacting to his whims.

His father would tell him to write back. Elio can hear his words already: you will regret it. You will spend the rest of your life thinking, what if?

And perhaps, he’s right.

With trembling hands, Elio tears a piece a paper from one of his school notepads, and lays it on his bedside table. It reminds him of when he used to write his journal, two years ago - the silly things he scribbled, ‘I was too harsh. I thought you hated me. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver.’

He thinks for a long time, feels like he’s still seventeen, scrunching up messages he wanted to write for Oliver but was too scared to. This time, though, he only writes one.

 

‘Coffe’s fine. I can do Monday morning before school. Meet 9am, in the lobby?

-E’

 

Monday morning sounds so clinical, like he’s scheduling a work meeting - but anything else, anything later, he just doesn’t want to take the risk. He wants to avoid any temptation.

Despite the assuredness he hopes his note exudes, his hands are trembling when he goes to the porter, and drops his message in an envelope, asking for it to be delivered to Oliver. He has a weird, irrational fear that if he leaves it in Oliver’s mailbox it will get lost amongst all his correspondence; this way, Oliver will have to receive it.

He leaves for school that morning with his heart in his stomach. He doesn’t know if he’s made the right choice; but then again, he doesn’t even know if this is not just some fluke, one last spark of a distant memory, here for one last fizzle.

He tries to push it aside in his mind. It’s Thursday; until Monday comes and goes, he will concentrate on something else. Or at least he’ll try.

 

 

 

 

Elio wakes so early on Monday morning. He feels so tense. He’s not hungry, so he showers, and then spends a long time deciding what to wear. It’s not because he’s going to see Oliver, he tells himself - he’s always careful about his appearance.

He fixes his hair, doing his best to tame his curls into a style he likes. He looks at his face; the jaws still mostly hairless, practically like two years ago. It feels like no time has passed, and yet, everything is different.

He takes a deep breath, grabs his school bag, and leaves his apartment. Stands in the elevator, trying with all his might to ignore the trembling in his hands. He reminds himself to breathe deep.

It’s only Oliver. What’s the worst that can happen? They’ll have a coffee. Marvel at the huge coincidence that has both of them living in the same building, in New York City of all places - yes, Elio is still shocked about that. And then what?

They’ll say how nice it was to catch up. They’ll say ‘I’ll see you around.’ They’ll go their own separate ways.

If nothing else, seeing Oliver this morning will at least provide Elio with some closure.

But when he sees Oliver, standing by the entrance, chatting casually with the porter, he’s startled. He realises - deep down, he didn’t actually believe he would show up.

Elio sets his jaw, breathes again, and wills together all the confidence he can muster.

“Hey,” he greets, feigning nonchalance as he walks towards him.

Oliver beams at him. A wide, sincere smile.

“Elio.”

“There’s a coffee place around the corner. I go there sometimes in the morning. That ok?”

Elio almost doesn’t stop walking as he says that, but thankfully Oliver gets in step with him, his smile still in place.

“Sure,” he nods.

The coffee shop is tiny, but not too busy, and they manage to grab their drinks and sit at a table. Elio takes a sip; waits for Oliver to speak first. He wouldn’t know what to say, anyway. 

“I hope you don’t mind me asking you to meet,” Oliver says. “It was so nice to see you the other day. And I’ve missed you.”

Elio suppresses a cough, narrowly avoiding his coffee going down the wrong way. Did Oliver just say he missed him?

“I don’t mind.” Elio decides to deflect. He takes another drink from his cup; his coffee has cream on top, and it’s sweet on his tongue - but he can’t seem to enjoy it.

“Tell me about you. When did you arrive? What are you studying?”

Elio hesitates for a moment. For a moment, he thinks of lying. Of finding a way not to answer Oliver’s questions. There is a reason why he didn’t allow his parents to talk about him to Oliver - should Oliver have asked them anything.

But he finds that he can’t. He just can’t lie to Oliver.

“I got here about three weeks ago. I’m studying music at Juilliard. It’s already kind of intense.”

“Oh wow,” Oliver’s eyes light up, and it seems genuine. “That’s amazing. Congratulations! Not that I would have had any doubt.”

Elio looks down at his coffee cup. His cheeks feel warm, because of Oliver’s compliment; but he’s annoyed at himself. It shouldn’t affect him like that. He doesn’t care; Oliver’s opinion is not important.

They’re quiet for a few, long moments.

“Do you not want to talk to me, Elio?” Oliver’s question comes. He sounds so unsure; so tentative. Almost sad.

And the first instinct, for Elio, is to feel guilty.

“It’s not that,” he hurries to say.

Oliver doesn’t say anything. He just looks at him.

“I just - I don’t know what to say. We haven’t - I haven’t spoken to you in so long. Since you... since that call,” Elio murmurs, trying to keep his voice level. He feels like he’s losing his grasp on his resolve; he’s terrified he’s going to say too much.

“I always asked your parents about you. Every single time we spoke. They said you didn’t want to speak to me.”

“I didn’t.”

Elio is surprised at himself, for being so candid. He expects Oliver to react - but he just nods, slowly. And he doesn’t react, when Elio speaks next.

“You told me you were getting married. What did you want me to do?”

Elio watches, as Oliver folds his arms on the table in front of himself. But he’s still watching Elio. Looking at him straight in the eyes, his expression concerned. As if he’s worried he’s hurting Elio all over again.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you get married?”

Well. Elio ended up surprising himself. This was not something he had planned to ask Oliver. In fact, he’d told himself he’d stay well clear of the subject.

He waits; his heart in his throat once again.

“Yes. I did. I am.”

What was Elio hoping to achieve, with that question, he wonders. Of course Oliver got married. That was the whole point of that horrible call, that horrible day. Why would he have said it, if it wasn’t true?

Elio is angry with himself. He looks down, again, shakes his coffee cup lightly with a hand, watches what’s left of the brown liquid swish around, meekly.

And Oliver speaks again.

“It is true, though. That I have missed you.”

Oliver is watching him intently when Elio looks up. His blue eyes are just like Elio remembers them. They are the eyes Elio was never able to forget. Even though he doesn’t even have a picture of Oliver, he has never forgotten them.

Elio needs to stop this.

“I’m -I’m sorry. It’s late. I have to go to school.”

He makes to zip up his jacket, and chances a look at Oliver. Who hasn’t moved. Still looking at him, his expression concerned.

“Elio...”

“It was - nice, seeing you. But I - I have to go.”

Elio gets up, and pulls his school bag up over his shoulder - that’s Oliver’s moment to say anything. He’ll leave right after this, if he doesn’t say anything.

Oliver looks up at him. Nods. Smiles, but this time, his lips are tight.

Elio’s cheeks are aflame, as he bites his lower lip, and runs a hand through his curls, absentmindedly trying to fix them again. Perhaps to give himself something to do.He looks at the other man once more. 

“Bye, Oliver.”

He forces himself to leave, before the beats of his heart become so loud that even Oliver can hear them.


	4. Chapter 4

Elio goes to bed that night, thinking furiously about what happened.

 

He felt good about having left, not having allowed Oliver to talk him into believing that he’s missed him, that he meant something to him - he had to leave before any of that happened - but now, he feels restless about it. He feels stupid.

He didn’t get the closure he wanted. Oliver probably thinks he acted childishly - he’s probably happy he left a tantrumming kid like him.

Elio pulls a curls on his forehead with his fingers absentmindedly, bites his lip in annoyance.

He doesn’t know what to think, now. Despite himself, stupidly, he hopes that Oliver will try and get in touch with him again.

But he also knows he shouldn’t want that.

He turns over in bed, hides his face into the pillow, frowns, willing himself to sleep.

This is all so frustrating.

 

 

 

 

So the day after, when his new roommates announce that they’re planning to go out despite it being a school night, Elio decides that’s exactly what he needs.

He tags along with them, and they end up in a bar a few blocks from their building - Ash, the roommate from California, has a friend who works there, and so they are let in, and even served alcohol. It’s all shady, but Elio doesn’t care - he wants to drink.

Soon, it’s nearly 2 in the morning, and they are all rather drunk.

Ash has been talking about this girl he likes for the past thirty minutes. Matt, the other roommate, has listened and spurred him on the whole time.

Elio wishes he could talk about his love life with the same nonchalance as them.

Instead, the person he likes is a man; a man who’s married. A man who left him two years ago.

It’s all wrong. All wrong.

By the time they walk back, his head is thrumming and spinning a little as well. He craves a cigarette. Matt gives him one of his, since Elio’s run out, but both him and Ash go upstairs while Elio smokes by the entrance.

He’s kind of glad they haven’t waited for him. He feels he needs some time to think.

Or figure out how to avoid thinking.

The world is still spinning around him even after the first few puffs - they haven’t helped clear his head - and so Elio has to sit down, on the sidewalk, while he finishes his cigarette and waits for his vertigo to pass. He hopes he doesn’t get hit by a stray car in the meantime.

“Elio?”

That voice. Again.

It can’t be, not again; Elio thinks he’s imagining it.

“What are you doing out here on your own? Are you okay?”

Elio looks up, into Oliver’s concerned face. He realises he must have finished his cigarette a few minutes ago. He didn’t even realise he dropped the cigarette butt, and hugged his knees, hidden his face against them. He shivers at the cold he feels.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles. He hopes Oliver heard. He really doesn’t want him around right now.

“You’re shivering.” Oliver’s voice sounds worried. “Don’t you want to go in?”

Elio thinks yes, he wants to, but he doesn’t trust his legs at the moment. And he doesn’t want to look like a fool in front of Oliver - that’s the last thing he needs. He’s glad his drunk brain realises that.

“I will. Not now.”

Great. That sounds exactly like someone who’s fine would say. Elio cringes inwardly. Maybe Oliver will go. He has a wife to go to. He surely doesn’t have time to waste trying to figure out what the hell is up with a stupid kid he used to know.

Instead, Oliver crouches down, and sits next to him on the sidewalk.

“How about I sit here too, then,” he says. Just like, back then, he used to say ‘let’s go into town together’, ‘let’s go swimming’. You and me.

Elio burrows his face further into his arms.

“Tell me why are you here all alone? At nearly three in the morning?” Oliver asks.

“Didn’t know you were my guardian,” Elio replies, before his brain can connect to his mouth. He hopes Oliver hasn’t heard - but of course he has.

“I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I’d feel good thinking you’re out here catching your death either because of the cold, or because of some drunk New Yorker driving freestyle on a Tuesday night.”

“Wouldn’t be the only drunk one,” Elio mumbles again, before his brain can scream at him to be quiet.

Great.

“Alright. Come on. Let’s go inside.” Oliver picks himself up, and then holds Elio by his biceps, nudges him up too.

Elio has no strength left to protest.

“God. You’re freezing,” Oliver comments, as he walks both of them back inside the building. By the elevator they stop, and Elio wraps his arms around himself, takes one step away from Oliver.

“Thanks, but I’ve got it now.”

Oliver sighs.

“Let me take you to your floor.” And when Elio rolls his eyes, “please. It would make me feel much better. You’re drunk, Elio. I just want to make sure you get home safe.”

Elio wants to wonder at this sudden urge of attentiveness from Oliver - when he found it so easy to leave two years ago, to leave him, to tell him he would get married, to break his heart.

He doesn’t know why Oliver cares now, but it seems like he does. His blue eyes are sincere when he looks at Elio. And if there’s something Elio’s never been able to do, is to say no to Oliver’s eyes.

“Fine,” he huffs quietly. “I’m on the 6th floor.”

Oliver is quiet when the elevator arrives, and he presses the button to the floor. Elio looks down; still hugging himself, he still feels shivers - but right now, he isn’t sure it’s because of the cold. His heart is beating fast. His head still spinning.

He’s in an elevator, alone with Oliver, at 3 in the morning. He feels like he can’t breathe.

Luckily, the elevator doors open and then it’s his floor. Elio pats his jeans for his keys, hoping with all his might that he brought them and breathing of relief when he finds them.

Oliver follows him out of the elevator and all the way to apartment number 61. Like some sort of bodyguard.

Elio doesn’t know what to say. The only thing his panicked brain can think is that Oliver now knows which apartment he lives in - and his traitorous heart responds with hope. Good. He knows, so he knows where to find you.

“Okay, well, thanks.”

His words sound like they come from a girl just back from a romantic date, and not from someone who was found by his ex alone and drunk on a sidewalk at night. Elio frowns, looks down, willing his heart to stop beating so fast.

“Promise me you’ll drink a lot of water. Don’t make me worry about you being hungover tomorrow.”

Elio wants to reply that he doesn’t have any reason to worry about him - but his heart gives a squeeze instead at the thought. Of Oliver being worried. Of Oliver caring for him.

“I’ll be fine. I - I’ll go, now.”

Oliver nods.

“Good night, Elio.”

The last thing Elio sees is Oliver’s blue eyes still watching him, as he closes the door behind himself, and leans his forehead against the wood, sighing.


	5. Chapter 5

The day after, Elio thanks the universe for whatever coincidence made it so that he doesn’t have class in the morning.

He woke up with the worst headache, nauseous, and all he wants is to hide back under the covers.

It’s not the kind of hangover where he doesn’t remember what happened. He remembers everything, although it was a pretty unremarkable evening, except - except he’s spoken to Oliver again.

Elio wracks his brain, thinking back, trying to figure out if he’s said or done something to be regretful for. He doesn’t think so. They only spoke for a few minutes, after all.

He does remember the warm feeling in his chest he felt when Oliver said he was worried about him. Oliver sat with him, made sure he got home safe. He could have easily walked in without paying attention to him.

Elio allows himself to revel in that feeling for a few more moments, until his conscience stops the thoughts in their tracks - no, no. He shouldn’t go there. No. He said he wouldn’t think about Oliver again.

So he won’t.

“Elio?”

There’s a knock on the door, and Matt peers in. He looks fresh and awake, not at all like Elio - and Elio wants to groan and curse his inability to hold his liquor once more.

“Hey, I’ll leave you alone, but - someone left something for you by the door. Saw it as I went down to get my mail just now.”

Matt is holding a small envelope that has ‘Elio Perlman’ signed on it in black ink. Elio looks up, squinting a little, and Matt mumbles something about leaving the envelope on the shelf by the door for him, and then leaves.

Elio wants to ignore it and go back to sleep - but his curiosity has the better of him. He gets up, pads slowly to the door; picks up the envelope.

When he opens it, there’s a note in it. And his heart, which was already throbbing in hope, starts beating fast again.

 

 

_I somehow never had painkillers handy when I was in college and had a little too much to drink. I thought I’d leave these for you - in case you need them._

_And the soup is really good for when you can’t even look at food, but are famished at the very same time._

_Look after yourself,_

_Oliver_

 

 

In the envelope, there’s a packet of Advil, and one of soluble chicken soup.

Oh.

Elio stands there for a moment, his heart beating, his head spinning a little.

Oliver did this for him.

Oliver looked after him last night; and left him a little care package by the door today. Elio realises how much he needs painkillers just now. And how warm his skin feels at the thought of Oliver doing all this for him. Thinking of him.

The traitorous hope growing inside him is trumping his resolve to move on from Oliver, from his feelings for him - and what’s worse, Elio doesn’t think he can find the strength to stop the hope from taking over, nor he wants to try.

Shit.

 

 

 

 

 

The medicine does make him feel much better, and he even manages to make and eat the soup before going to class.

When he comes back, feeling tired but relieved to have gotten rid of his hangover so quickly, both Matt and Ash are in the living room, on the couch.

They look at him as he comes in, and as Elio takes off his scarf and coat, he knows they’re about to announce something.

“So we were thinking,” Ash starts. He has straight, dirty blonde hair which are all over the place. He’s probably hung out in the apartment all day doing nothing at all. “We need to get you on a date.”

Elio walks to the kitchenette to get a glass of water, and just about manages to avoid chocking on his first sip.

“What?”

“Whoa, it’s supposed to be a good thing!” Ash chuckles, but there’s no edge there. “You’re a nice guy, and we know so many chicks who’d like you.”

“Basically,” Matt interjects, “Ash here wants to go out with Lauren and wants you to go out with her friend Emily as a double date.”

Elio feels like he wants to roll his eyes, in amusement if nothing else, but surely that wouldn’t be taken well by two guys who don’t really know him and his mannerisms just yet, so he doesn’t.

“What. Like a blind date?” He asks, taking another sip of his water.

“Well, not for me it wouldn’t be,” Ash says, with a smirk. This time, Elio does roll his eyes.

He wants to ask why Matt can’t go with him instead. But would that sound too defensive?

He decides not to. Weirdly, he feels like he would give too much away - but doesn’t even know why. Is it because he’s a college student, he’s single, and should be looking forward to hooking up with as many girls as possible?

He shouldn’t be thinking about his ex lover, a man, seven years older than him, a married man.

“Sure. I’ll go with you.”

His words have escaped him once again, as it happens to him so often. 

“Great! Tonight, at 7. We’re meeting them downtown.” Ash doesn’t leave him any time to change his mind.

 

 

 

 

 

Emily is nice. Nice enough.

She’s not like Marzia. Doesn’t have the same elegance, the same grace. She’s louder. She has a big smile, big brown eyes which she opens wide more often than not.

She’s pretty, and Elio wishes with all of himself that he could like her.

She’s giggling a lot, and touching his arm, and talks to him about Lauren and Ash, who are standing by the bar. She wonders what they’re talking about. 

“Dating in New York is so difficult,” she says. “Meeting people is impossible.”

“Mmh,” Elio nods - even though he doesn’t agree. It isn’t so impossible, if he can end up meeting Oliver by accident in the very same building as him.

“But it’s good to come here as a single person,” Emily continues, her smile beaming. “You know? So you’re free to find someone you really like.”

Elio is single, but he doesn’t feel that way at all. He doesn’t even want to find someone he likes.

Someone else.

“Emily, listen,” he says, looking down at his feet, then up into her eyes. “You’re a really nice girl, but - I can’t. Sorry, I - I have to go home. I can find you a taxi, if you want?”

Emily blinks long eyelashes, hesitates for a moment.

“No. No, it’s fine.”

“Okay,” Elio needs to leave. “Okay, well. I am sorry.”

He doesn’t even know why he feels so apologetic - it’s not like they’re actually involved. He leaves the bar quickly, before he says more useless words. Ash will understand.

When he gets home, his heart is beating fast again, and he feels like an idiot for what he’s about to do.

But he hasn’t stopped thinking about Oliver all day. He can’t ignore this situation anymore.

 

_I got your envelope. Thank you. That was very thoughtful. And I was wondering if we maybe could try this again?_

 

No, no. That would definitely sound weird. He tears the note into pieces. 

 

 

_Thank you for the envelope you left me. It was very thoughtful of you._

_Can we try the coffee thing again? My way of repaying the favor?_

_-E_

 

He worries for a moment that his note sounds cold. Detached. But he doesn’t know how it’s supposed to sound. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to achieve. Oliver is still married. Oliver is still... not with him. He’s not the Oliver he met in Italy.

But Elio can’t stop thinking about him.

And so he goes down to the lobby, leaves the note for Oliver with the porter again, before he can change his mind.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Elio’s biggest worry, as soon as he dropped the note for Oliver with the porter, is that he’ll have to wait for a response.

Because waiting meant time to overthink. Waiting meant time to realise what a huge mistake he was making. It meant torturing himself, wondering what Oliver thought of his note, if he laughed at it, at his awkward attempt to behave like an adult for once. If Oliver decided Elio’d crossed the line, messaging a married man.

Thankfully, Oliver’s response arrives so quickly, the morning after, that Elio feels actual gratitude for having been spared that terrible turmoil.

 

 

 

_You have nothing to pay me back for. But I’d like to see you again._

_Meet me in the lobby on Saturday at 11am?_

_There’s a place that makes the best bagels in New York City not far from here. I think you’d love it._

_-Oliver_

 

 

 

Elio doesn’t reply, but on Saturday, he waits for Oliver so they can meet as he suggested. When he sees him, Elio’s hands still tremble, and his heart still beats fast; but as Oliver leads him to the place for their breakfast, Elio tries to breathe, to remember this is just a chat. Just two friends, reconnecting.

Oliver is making small talk, chatting about New Yorkers, and how different they are from Bostonians, and how funny he sometimes finds them. He’s saying he thinks Elio will really love New York City.

Elio nods, and hopes Oliver can’t read right through him.

“This place has its own bakery, and they make their bagels fresh every morning,” Oliver tells him when they arrive at the small cafe. They take a seat at one of the tiny, rugged, rustic tables.

“It smells good,” Elio says, because it does. The smell of fresh bread has always been one of his favorites.

They order from the menu on the board - cream cheese and salmon for Oliver, ham and pickles for Elio.

Oliver seems in such a good mood. Elio hopes he will actually find space in his tummy to eat his food.

“How are you liking Juilliard?” Oliver asks as they wait.

Elio nods.

“Yeah, I like it. I don’t think we’ve got to the thick of it just yet, we’ve only just started, but - so far, it’s how I expected. It’s good.”

Oliver takes a sip of his water.

“Do you share your apartment with other students?”

“Yeah. Two guys.”

“Oh.” Oliver comments, with a half, tight smile. “Sounds nice.”

The waiter brings them their bagels - warm, they smell so delicious - and Elio chances a look at Oliver from under his eyelashes. The way he’s said ‘sounds nice’ - a little off. Or maybe Elio’s just imagining it?

Even after everything that happened between them, Oliver is still so difficult for him to read.

He clears his throat.

“How are things with you?”

“Good. Good, I guess. Work is busy, but I don’t mind. I just wish I had more time to write, but it will get better.”

“Oh. Are you writing another book?”

Oliver nods.

“Yes, my second.” He sighs. “The second book is always more difficult.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Elio says, and gives a little smile, to make sure he doesn’t sound snappy. He honestly wouldn’t know. He’s so much less interesting than Oliver.

They finish their food, quietly chatting. Oliver tells him about his book - this one is on Plato. The Symposium, Aristophanes’s tale on the reason why human beings forever search for their other half.

Elio knows it well; he’s studied it in high school. He’s reread it in his own time. The metaphor in it is so real and heartbreaking, and what is the Universe doing? He can’t believe that, exactly that, is the subject of Oliver’s new book. And the subject of their conversation just now. People looking for their lost other half their whole life.

He doesn’t say anything when Oliver finishes telling him about it. He looks down at his empty plate, is happy to have finished his food already - because his stomach is suddenly refusing the idea of eating altogether.

“You live with your wife, I’m guessing.”

What a stupid, stupid question. So stupid.

But he sets his jaw, raises his eyes up to look at Oliver. He feels braver - perhaps the adrenaline is getting to his head.

“Yes.”

“When did you get married?”

Oliver takes a deep breath. Picks up a napkin, toys with it in his hands for a few moments.

“April, last year.”

Just like he told me, Elio thinks. Right on schedule.

He nods. Looks away, towards the other tables in that tiny, tiny cafe. A young woman has just come in with her stroller, baby in tow, and is trying to negotiate the space inside with the little wheels that keep bumping into table legs.

“Have you got a kid already?”

The question sounds brash. That’s not how you usually ask someone you know about whether they have children.

Semantics.

“No.”

“Do you want to have kids?” Elio asks, softly. Meekly.

He can feel the situation getting out of his hands again. He doesn’t want it to; that’s not what he was thinking of when he asked Oliver to meet him again.

It was a sort of peace offering, and a way to appease his own heart; not a reason for more pain.

“I don’t know, Elio. It’s not... that’s not something I think about. Just now.”

For a moment, Elio almost feels for him.

Oliver probably gets asked this question a lot. His parents, his parents in law, they probably ask. Now that they got married, when are they going to give them grandkids?

It’s what always happens, isn’t it?

Elio bets Oliver’s wife dreams about children too. It’s what so many women want, the next step after getting married.

So Oliver doesn’t need this from Elio, too. He’s just told him he’s focussed on his book, after all.

But Elio can’t bring himself to feel guilty. Oliver’s taken his heart. Stole it, stashed in his suitcase, carried it all the way back to New England while Elio stood on a platform, hollowed and crying.

The least Oliver can do is answer Elio’s questions.

“I just. I have asked myself so many things,” Elio says. “Spent so many nights just...not being able to sleep. And now, I...”

He doesn’t think he can go on - but he has to.

“Now you are here, in the same building as me, fuck Oliver. I don’t know what to feel.”

He hasn’t been that vulnerable since the day Oliver made love to him at midnight.

Oliver looks at him, his blue eyes a mixture of distress, and hopeful hesitancy. They’re the color of the lake near Crema after a storm.

His voice is soft when he speaks.

“I wish there was a way for us to be, something.” He hesitates. “Friends. I’ve hated not having you in my life.”

He’s reached out his hand, slowly, placed it on Elio’s on the table. Elio looks at it, at their fingers almost interlinked together, and for a moment he wants to tighten that contact; but he pulls his hand back.

“I don’t want to be friends with you,” he says sincerely. “I can’t.”

Oliver, once again, nods. 

“Is this how it ends, then?”

End. Ending. Fine. Over.

Elio can’t even bear to think of it; but he shakes his head, lost.

The waiter comes then, and Oliver nods at him to clear their table, and leaves some bills on it to pay for their breakfast. With a small smile, he stands; Elio does the same. 

They walk out, quiet, as if in contemplation of what just happened.

So what’s going to happen now, Elio thinks, if they agree they can’t be anything, can’t be friends, can’t be lovers, but they have to live remembering there’s always a chance of bumping into each other as they come home at night, in the elevator, as they leave for work or for dinner with their loved ones - Oliver’s wife, Elio’s girlfriend.

It’s a prospect that makes Elio feel sick.

“Can I keep seeing you?” He asks Oliver, when they reach their building. Suddenly. Impulsively.

The pain he feels in his heart still has the power to spur him into decisions he needs all his courage for.

He knows his request is vague - but he has no idea what else to say, how to describe what he wants. He just doesn’t want to lose Oliver again.

As they stop in the middle of the lobby for a moment - it’s Saturday late morning, nobody’s around - Oliver looks at him, and smiles. Gentle. Almost shy.

He starts walking the short distance to the elevator, and even though he hasn’t said a word, Elio feels elated, he feels something in his chest that makes him feel warm.

They get into the elevator, it’s just the two of them, in silence. Oliver presses six, then eight. That’s where he lives.

Elio is relieved it’s a fairly long way up their building, because halfway through, he throws his arms around Oliver’s neck, and hugs him. A bit of a child’s hug, like that night, two years ago.

Oliver responds immediately, wrapping his stronger arms around Elio, one around his shoulder blades, the other on the small of his back - moulding his body to him. Like that night two years ago.

They stay like that until the elevator dings, and they’re on Elio’s floor. Elio doesn’t want to let go, but has to, before the doors close again.

“I don’t remember the phone number for my flat by heart. But maybe I can leave it for you at concierge?” Instinctively he knows leaving messages at Oliver’s door, like he did with him, is off limits; as is Elio calling Oliver himself.

“Yes, please.” Oliver smiles at him.

Elio smiles too. Bites his lower lip; and then steps off the elevator, and looks on, as the doors close.

Oliver is still smiling at him.


	7. Chapter 7

“So Ash and Lauren broke up,” Matt tells Elio one morning, as he walks into the kitchen while Elio is making himself some coffee. Elio’s brought over the proper machine Mafalda uses, because there is no way he would drink that flavorless soluble powder they have in the apartment and call it espresso. 

“I didn’t even know they were together.” Elio pours in some milk, and three spoonfuls of sugar.

Matt shrugs.

“I mean, yeah, I don’t know. But she told him she’s done with him. I think he’s a bit bummed.”

Elio doesn’t really know what to say; from what Ash had told them about her, he didn’t think he cared so much. He guesses getting dumped is never a good feeling, even when it was just a casual date.

“But, hummm,” Matt hesitates for a moment. “Looks like someone else has been on dates, too.”

Elio is still too sleepy to catch the obvious inflection in his voice.

“You?”

“No, not me. You!”

Elio’s eyes go wide.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you’ve been out so much these past couple of weeks.”

Nosey roommates.

“It wasn’t dates,” Elio rushes to say, but he’s not sure where his sentence is going to go.

Since giving Oliver his phone number they have met up four more times - because Oliver wanted to show him New York and get him properly acquainted with the city. It had been nice; but it wasn’t dates. No, no it wasn’t.

“I’ve just... been meeting with a person.”

“One would argue that’s the definition of a date,” Matt smirks, and he’s got a point there.

“It’s just someone I used to know.” He’s careful not to use pronouns.

“Okay, okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be inappropriate,” Matt says with a smile, and it’s sincere enough that Elio can’t get annoyed at him.

“You weren’t. Anyway, I better go. I have so much to study,” he says, and gets up, goes to his room before Matt can ask anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“My roommate asked me if I’ve been going on dates,” Elio tells Oliver the day after, when they meet. They’ve gone to the bar where Elio went that night with Ash and Matt, when they got drunk. He’s been there a few times; Ash’s friend is now his friend too, and so he has no problem buying alcohol there.

“Oh, really?” Oliver asks. Takes a drink of his beer.

“Yeah.” Elio chuckles. He’s been feeling more and more at ease with Oliver, even to the point of drinking with him. He might even be a little tipsy already. “Apparently because I’m not locking myself in my room, that means I’m dating someone.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Elio suddenly realises how his sentence might sound like it has a double meaning. He looks down into his glass, but thankfully Oliver speaks first.

“Would you tell me?”

“Would I tell you?”

“If you were dating someone.”

Oliver takes another sip of his beer, and looks at Elio sideways. A little sheepish.

“I-,” Elio starts. “Yeah, I - if you want me to. But I’m not - I’m not dating anyone.”

He doesn’t know why he felt the need to specify that. It was just that Oliver’s question threw him, and he didn’t have enough time to think of a proper answer. Oliver seems satisfied though, as he doesn’t press further.

Elio feels his face warm, the alcohol travelling up to his cheeks; there’s a strange sensation right in the middle of his chest. He speaks before his brain can tell him not to - the drink has loosened him up.

“Why would you want to know?”

“Would a date be happy to know that you’re meeting up with - “and here Oliver hesitates, as if he’s considering the word, “me?”

Oliver didn’t miss a beat - and so Elio doesn’t, either.

“Would your wife be happy to know you’re meeting up with me?”

Oliver looks at him, and is quiet for a few seconds, a few seconds in which Elio’s heart hammers so loudly in his throat he’s scared Oliver will hear it. This is the first time he mentions Oliver’s wife since their first proper conversation. They’ve never spoken about her; Elio doesn’t even know her name. Elio tightens his fingers around his glass of beer, a sort of connection to reality while his thoughts are jumping over each other.

“I haven’t told her,” Oliver finally says. He’s holding Elio’s gaze. “And the reason I haven’t told her is - because we’re not really talking. Not much.”

Elio blinks.

He can’t really say either thing is a surprise for him. Of course Oliver wouldn’t have mentioned him to his wife. And them not talking - well. Oliver hadn’t seemed happy when he’d mentioned her - but Elio had just thought he might be reading too much between the lines.

“Sorry to hear that,” Elio says, but looks down at the wooden table, because he doesn’t want his eyes to betray his real emotions.

“It’s... it was me. I was the idiot. I shouldn’t ...” Oliver trails off.

“You shouldn’t ?”

“I had to leave, Elio. You know that, right?”

Elio blinks again, stunned.

Did he miss something? Has the alcohol already gone to his head? How did they go from talking about dates and Oliver’s wife to - what happened that summer?

They hadn’t touched upon that subject so far, and Elio had kind of liked it this way. Because this sounds like one of the scenarios Elio built in his head over and over again, and what is he supposed to say to that, if not ‘yes, I know’?

“You didn’t have to leave me,” he says instead.

He’s surprised himself, and he feels dizzy. He must be going insane. Oliver’s going to stop wanting to spend time with him. Elio got drunk, and he ruined this already, the thing that he’s been waking up every morning for for the past month or so. He’ll have to give up Oliver again. Forget him.

But Oliver is looking at him, with a crushed expression on his face. It reminds Elio of the one he had the day he left; when Elio watched him from the platform, as the train sped away, Oliver’s face a mask of pain and remorse.

“I would give anything to have a second chance.”

Oliver looks so sincere, so broken, and Elio can’t believe his ears. He was expecting him to dismiss everything, say something like ‘you’ll get over it’, or ‘you deserve better’, ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ One of those cliches that lovers so often use with each other, especially when they’ve been together for so little that there hasn’t even been enough time for any love to grow, for any heart to be really broken. 

“With me?” Elio asks, stupidly. His brain is just not there anymore.

Oliver chuckles very briefly, but his lips are downturned.

“Yes, you goose. With you.”

Elio doesn’t really remember how it happened.

How his lips searched for Oliver’s. How his hand fisted Oliver’s shirt, his mouth messily mashing against Oliver’s, until he felt Oliver respond, his large hands cupping Elio’s cheeks, and it was so familiar Elio could sob.

He just realises he’s kissing Oliver, his lips uncoordinated and his tongue tasting the beer on Oliver’s - and there is a ringing in his head, and he needs to end the kiss before he runs out of oxygen. He looks down, and Oliver’s lips kiss him on his forehead instead, press against it. Elio is aware they’re in a bar, there’s other people around, they should be more careful. He can’t even think of looking up right now, looking around. He needs a moment.

“Can we go and talk somewhere else?” Oliver murmurs against his hair. His hands stroke down from Elio’s face to his shoulders, and stop on his arms, squeezing firmly.

Elio feels like laughing, in his mind, and his cheeks are so hot they may as well be on fire.

“Talk?” he murmurs back; dares to look up at Oliver.

He wishes they didn’t have to talk at all.

“I would keep kissing you. Until the morning,” Oliver says. His voice is rough. “I missed kissing you.”

Elio sighs, and has to stop himself from trying to find Oliver’s lips again. Actively stop himself - not like two years ago, when he just did what he felt, touched when he wanted, asked for Billowy, kissed up Oliver’s chest until he found his mouth and they made out, for hours, and then went home and made love until dawn.

He can’t, now; they can’t. For so many reasons.

“Let’s go home,” he says instead, and looks up, into Oliver’s eyes, his own scared and hopeful and everything in between.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love you’ve been giving this story so far. I’m super grateful. Please keep the comments coming <3


	8. Chapter 8

They can’t kiss in the street but once they get home, they’re kissing again in the elevator, clinging to each other, with a desperate want that Elio only realises he’s feeling after the door dings. It’s his floor, and they break apart, fearful of someone seeing them, and come back to reality now that they’re no longer enclosed in a small space with only their shared air to breathe.

Elio walks out and into the hallway, and Oliver follows. They start kissing again then. It’s foolish, so foolish.

Elio ends the kiss and presses himself even further against the wall.

“Stop, stop,” he breathes, looking down, and then into Oliver’s eyes.

Oliver stops, but doesn’t move away. If anyone were to see them, it wouldn’t look like they’re simply having a friendly conversion. They’re standing way too close, and Elio’s heart beats fast.

“God. You’re so beautiful,” Oliver murmurs, breathless.

“You’re drunk,” Elio tells him, chuckles softly against the warmth he feels in his cheeks.

Oliver strokes his lower lip with a thumb. Rough; and it reminds Elio of that day in heaven. In his private place - when Oliver had worshipped, seduced him with his hands.

“Goose. I mean it.”

Elio wants to lick the pad of that finger; let it stroke his mouth again, damp, demanding. He would die to sleep with Oliver again, his body screaming for it, made for it.

But he knows he can’t.

If he does it, there won’t be coming back from it.

“I have to go to my apartment now.”

He sounds so formal as he says it, and he looks up into Oliver’s eyes, to gauge his reaction. As he expected, Oliver doesn’t look happy.

“Yeah. Okay,” Oliver says, after a moment of silence, where he visibly breathes. They look at each other; and then Oliver leans over to him, and kisses Elio’s mouth again. A sort of good night kiss; but their tongues meet, and the kiss goes on for long. Way longer than it should. But it’s so languid, so slow and deep, that Elio really has to really force himself to separate from Oliver, because he would let it go on forever.

Oliver nods.

“Good night,” he says, and with one last look, he turns around and goes back to the elevator.

 

The walk back to his room seems longer than usual. Elio feels dizzy, warm, his lips tingling and swollen with kisses.

He feels as if he’s in a trance, as he lays on his bed, over the covers, clothed, and has to take another really deep breath. He touches his lips, absentmindedly. Remembering Oliver’s touch.

Fuck.

He’s kissed other people since Oliver, but no one ever made him feel like this.

Wanted, desired. No one knows how to touch him like Oliver does. No one has his hands, large, wrapped around Elio’s neck gently, around his cheeks, holding him and moulding him to himself, in a way that made Elio just want to let go, abandon himself, give himself to Oliver.

No one.

Elio doesn’t know how he’ll be able to sleep. He doesn’t want to. Because tomorrow, when he wakes up, he’ll have to face what happened, and take stock, and he’s scared of what he’ll find.

He’ll find that he’s still in love with Oliver. He’ll find that Oliver is still the person he wants to be with.

And Oliver is still an impossible dream - now even more so than he was when Elio met him at seventeen.

Elio doesn’t want to think about it.

He turns off his bedside lamp, gets undressed, gets under the covers. He wills his damn brain to stop thinking. Yes, not sleeping with Oliver was the right decision. No, he shouldn’t have invited him into his apartment.

But he’s kissed Oliver, they’ve kissed, Oliver still wants him, Oliver wants a second chance.

What that means, what that entails, Elio is not sure he wants to know right now.

 

 

 

 

The day after Elio wakes up, and groans. Not drinking water before he went to bed was a really bad idea.

He showers, pads into the kitchen, hoping coffee will help. He has so much to read and study, he really can’t fall behind.

“Rough night?” Matt asks when he sees him.

He has kind eyes, and he seems actually sympathetic, so Elio smiles sheepishly and nods.

“Too much beer and not enough water.”

“Sounds like you had a good time,” Matt says, and motions to the slices of toasts he’s buttering - but Elio shakes his head. He can’t face food now.

“Were you with the girl?”

The girl?

Elio needs a moment to clock Matt’s question. Oh. The dating thing. Matt thinks he’s seeing a woman.

“Ah - Yes,” Elio says. It’s just easier this way. He just doesn’t want to take that chance yet.

Matt laughs, and takes his breakfast to the couch.

Elio hesitates for one moment; but he really needs to talk to someone.

“Would you-“ he starts, stops; starts again. “Would you date someone who’s - not free?”

“As in they’ve got a boyfriend already?”, Matt looks up from his food to ask.

Elio nods.

“Ah. Well. I don’t know. It’s never a good situation.”

Elio raises his eyebrows in agreement. “No, it’s not.”

“Why are you doing it?”

“Who said it was me?”

Matt laughs again. “Aw, come on dude. You’re asking this, after last night, with a face that says ‘I’m in big trouble’,” he explains. “You don’t have to hide it, I don’t judge.”

Elio rolls his eyes, but has to concede defeat.

“I - “ he starts. It’s not easy to say, even though it’s so clear, in his mind and his heart. “I really like this person.”

“Well. Why is she cheating?”

Matt’s question is direct, and leaves Elio quiet for a moment. Why is she cheating?

Why is Oliver cheating?

He doesn’t know. He hasn’t thought about it. He didn’t even wonder.  

“I don’t know.”

“I would, maybe. Try to find out. To see if there’s any chance - for you and her.”

Matt looks at him; and this time, he’s the one raising his eyebrows, in question.

Elio doesn’t answer. He stands there, thinking, thinking.

Matt is right. Matt is right.

But Elio doesn’t know if he can bring himself to ask Oliver that question. He’s scared of the answer. He’s in way too deep. He’s fallen for Oliver all over again, just as fast as he did that summer two years ago.

“Maybe I will,” he says, feigning courage, and turns his back to Matt, as if afraid that his roommate will be able to read more into him than he wants him to.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Elio does want to talk to Oliver, and ask him. What is going on? Why are you cheating on your wife?

How did we end up in this situation?

It’s all legitimate and perfectly sensible questions, and they sound so easy in his head, so obvious to ask, and yet a flame of anxiety flickers every time he thinks about it too much.

Elio sees Oliver twice after his talk with Matt; and he tries to ask, both times. He swears he does. They’re in his mind, on the tip of his tongue.

And yet he doesn’t.

Both times, they barely talk, and they’re already on each other. Kissing.

One time, they’ve met up as usual, this time they’re going to Rockefeller Center - it will be Christmas soon, it will look amazing, you’ll see, Oliver is saying. Their hands bump into each other, and their fingers link, let go, link again; a flashback from Crema. It’s dark already and Oliver leads him somewhere not crowded, and Elio already knows what’s going to happen - and he lets it. He can’t say no.

Oliver’s kisses are too delicious. Oliver’s kisses are addictive. Nobody has ever kissed Elio like Oliver does, taking the whole of Elio’s full mouth, nobody knows how to bite his lips in that same way, erotic and just the good side of painful. Oliver does it every time and then looks at him, and strokes his swollen mouth with a thumb. It makes Elio’s knees weak.

The second time, they meet entirely by accident, in the laundry room, in the basement of their building.

Elio wants to laugh at the coincidence - both of them there at eleven at night - but he doesn’t even have time to, because the laundry room is deserted and of course Oliver takes him into his arms, wraps his huge hands around Elio’s face, and kisses him. Bites his lips. Elio moans into his mouth; can’t help it.

“Your mouth is like those peaches in Crema,” Oliver growls softly against Elio’s cheek. “So full and ripe.”

Elio feels himself blushing at the memory, the day Oliver licked his release out of a peach, and he also feels his head spin, one moment away from short circuiting completely.

Oliver is pushing his pelvis against Elio’s, and he’s hard, and Elio has to close his eyes not to lose his grip on the moment, on where they are, on what they’re doing. His legs want to open on their own, his body already wanting to accommodate Oliver’s, muscle memory, or autopilot, Elio doesn’t know. His body wants Oliver’s touch, his hands everywhere.

But what if someone comes in? What if someone sees them?

Elio shuts his eyes tight and then reopens them, and forces himself to pull away from Oliver a little.

“Wait,” he practically begs. “Not here. Not here. What if someone comes in?”

Oliver’s eyes are black, his jaw is tight, and he racks a hand through his hair as if to come back to reality after a dream.

“It’s eleven at night.” It’s a sort of protest, but Elio can tell Oliver knows he’s right.

It gives Elio the right opportunity to ask.

“What are you doing here at this time?” He tries to soften his eyes, make it into a joke - it’s not a reprimand. “I’m a college student, but you...” he trails off.

“Jennifer is away, for work. She’s - she’s the organised one. I leave everything to the last minute.”

Jennifer.

Oliver’s wife, Jennifer.

Elio nods. He scratches at the back of his head with a hand, like he does so often, when he’s unsure - but his lips are tight.

Jennifer is Oliver’s wife, and she’s away for work, and Oliver is in the basement kissing his nineteen year old ex-lover from two summers ago, who is still stupidly in love with him and should know better.

Elio’s heart is beating fast, again, and he looks up at Oliver, psyches himself up. They need to talk - he wants to ask. Jennifer is a ghost now, and she’s taking space between them - but what is he saying? It’s him; he’s the one taking space between Oliver and his wife.

“Come back to mine,” Oliver says. His eyes looking straight into Elio’s.

“Come back to my apartment with me. Spend the night.”

Elio, actually, seriously, whimpers.

He wasn’t expecting that. And it’s like a punch to the chest, not painful, but one that makes his heart skip a beat. He doesn’t know why he didn’t think of that, he didn’t think Oliver would actually ask him - he didn’t think of anything at all.

Oliver is looking at him, and then he leans in, kisses him again, a hand on his face to guide him, and like always, Elio wants to pull back, but he leans in. Closes his eyes, kisses back, moans into Oliver’s mouth.

He could go back to Oliver’s apartment now.

He could spend the night, in his bed; let Oliver make love to him, feel his naked body against his, like two years ago, like what he’s been dreaming of since. He could.

“No, Oliver, I -“ he tries to say, tries to speak, when Oliver frees his lips in between kisses. “I can’t.”

“Please,” Oliver says. He kisses Elio’s mouth, then his chin, then his neck - it’s Elio’s weakness, his neck and his throat, and Oliver knew that two years ago, he still remembers now.

So what if he lets Oliver kiss him. So what if he sleeps with him, so what. Oliver belonged to Elio first, Elio loved him first.

So what...

A door slamming freezes his thoughts in their tracks, and they separate, Oliver stepping back from him and Elio having to lean against the wall for support - he feels floored. It must have been in the hallway because no one actually comes in; but by then, reality has come back, back to them, to Elio.

He takes a deep breath, wills his body to calm down.

“I should finish up, and go back,” Elio says. It feels even more awkward than the very first time he said that, but he does have a pile of dirty clothes at his feet to wash. And how mundane does that sound after what just happened.

Oliver chuckles softly, looks down, then back up to find Elio’s eyes.

“You’ll kill me if you keep doing this.”

Elio looks at him too.

“Can we talk? Tomorrow?”

It feels like the most difficult words to say, heavy like a burden, because god knows Elio would rather do the easy thing right now, the tempting one, he’d rather go back to Oliver’s and continue this, no question asked.

But Jennifer. Jennifer Jennifer.

Oliver nods.

“Yes. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

The look on his face is so intense that for a moment Elio thinks he’s going to kiss him again, but luckily he doesn’t - or that would be it.

But Elio needs to be strong.

“Meet you in the lobby at noon?”

Elio nods. Doesn’t trust himself to move.

Oliver sighs, and smiles, lightly. When he leaves, Elio finally takes a breath.

 

 

 

 

 

“Something tells me you didn’t pick this place just because it’s close by,” Oliver tells Elio the day after, when they’re sitting at the cafe around the corner from their building. It’s small, but buzzing with customers.

“I like the coffee,” Elio responds.

“Right.”

Elio sighs. He looks at his own hand, wrapped around the mug he’s sipping from.

“We- always end up.. not talking. When we’re alone,” he awkwardly tries to explain. Although he doesn’t need to. Oliver knows why Elio’s decided to go to a crowded coffee place for their talk. Too many people around means they have to behave.

“And, Oliver...” Elio continues. Although the words want to stay buried in his throat. “You’re married. What’s going on? Why are you- cheating?”

It feels and sounds wrong to say, though Elio’s no fool, he knows so many couples have troubles like this, he knows people cheat, and life goes on. He’s just never been involved in such a situation.

Oliver looks at him for a moment. Almost surprised.

“I never stopped thinking about you.”

“But - you got married.”

Elio doesn’t know how to explain. He hopes Oliver understands. You got married; I thought you loved her. 

Oliver looks at him for a long moment, and then sighs.

“It’s complicated.”

How is it complicated, Elio wants to ask. Do you want me, or do you want her?

He wishes he had the strength to say this out loud. Instead, he says nothing.

“There’s some things I - had to do. Remember, when I told you. Over the phone, that day?” Oliver asks, and Elio gives a quick nod, of course he remembers. It was awful. “It’s complicated.”

Elio sits there, for a moment. There’s words on the tip of his tongue again. ‘What are you doing with me, then?’ It’s one, simple question, and yet it’s so vast and Elio can’t imagine what the answer would be. But most of all, he can’t make himself ask, for fear of destroying everything, that moment, what’s between them, even Oliver’s very presence in front of him.

Elio knows he should take that risk and demand answers, but he can’t ask. He just can’t. Not now.

“It must seem so absurd to you,” Oliver volunteers then. “But I have missed you. I’m not just here to - you’re not a pastime. I don’t want you to think that.”

Elio tries to read into Oliver’s eyes - but they just look guilty. Sad.

Oliver clears his throat.

“Remember when I told you... Jennifer and I, we’re not- we’re not really speaking right now. If you could just,” and here Oliver stops, looks down, then back up at Elio, his gaze intense. “If you could just hold on, until - when I sort this out. Because it can’t go on like this. I’ve been trying to tell her, that I can’t - be with her. So if you could wait...”

Elio blinks. Does it mean...

“You want to leave her?”

“I’m in love with someone else.” Oliver’s voice is firm. “And if you didn’t bring us here, with so many people around, I would show you right now.”

He’s smiling, sheepish, his eyes playful, and it reminds Elio so much of Crema, of Bergamo, of their days spent laughing, having playfights that descended into making love, that became sex so gentle, and then so intense, and then so urgent as their hours together counted down to zero.

Elio’s heart is beating fast, again.

Oliver said he’s in love with him.

He’d never said that before.

“Okay,” Elio says, nods, his voice almost failing him. “Okay.”

Oliver’s smile, then, is still shy but luminous; Elio hopes he’s made the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I hope this was worth it ;)


	10. Chapter 10

Elio finds Matt in the kitchen the next morning, pouring himself a glass of orange juice.

“You finally decided to break into the healthy stuff?”, he jokes, opening cabinets and gathering stuff for his coffee.

Matt snickers.

“I’ve been drinking for the past four days in a row... figured some vitamin c would help with the hangover. Plus it was going off!”

It makes Elio laugh, while he’s filling up his coffee machine. He really needs a cup to wake up properly today.

“How are things going? You know, with your - date,” Matt asks, bringing his glass to his lips and taking a big gulp.

Elio turns around, looks toward Matt while he waits for the telltale whistling that says his coffee is ready.

“Not a date. And - I don’t know. I mean, better, I think?” He looks down to his feet. “He said he wants to leave his wife.”

Shit. Shitshitshitshit.

He’s said too much, and now it’s too late to take back the details.

“I mean - what I meant-“ he stutters.

But Matt interrupts him.

“Hey, hey, Elio. It’s fine! It’s fine. I told you, I don’t judge.” He takes another sip of his juice, as if Elio’s face isn’t on fire and as if his heart hasn’t just skipped a beat. “I kinda figured, anyway.”

Fuck.

“You did?” Elio feels stupid, but his mind has just gone blank and he doesn’t know what to say.

“Yeah.” The smile on Matt’s face is still kind, seems sincere. “It’s fine, trust me.” He hesitates for a moment. “In fact, I- I think we may have more in common than you think.”

Elio’s eyes go wide.

“You mean...?”

“I mean, I don’t know about you really. You may swing both ways, maybe. But me, I - I’ve been gay for as long as I can remember. Not out, obviously, no - my parents don’t know. But yeah.”

Elio is speechless for a moment.

He had no idea. Although, now that he thinks about it, Matt has never mentioned going out with girls, or even being interested in them.

Elio bites his lower lip.

“Sorry, I... my parents never made a big deal. Out of, you know. Men, or women.” He’s not sure he’s making any sense, but Matt nods, and Elio feels a bit better. “But coming here, I didn’t know what... People usually aren’t that understanding.”

“Trust me, I know,” Matt says, and turns around to put his glass in the sink.

Elio looks down, cheeks warm again.

“Right. Sorry.”

Matt smiles, and faces him again.

“So this guy you’re seeing... is he one of those?”

“One of those?” Elio asks, confused.

“You know. The happily married ones, who hook up with boys in secret. That kind.”

Elio feels a sting in his chest. Matt’s description, thrown out like that, so offhand, is so painfully exact. Almost exact.

“He’s not happily married,” he defends.

Matt nods.

“No?”

Elio turns off the coffee machine, has to think a moment to remember what he was doing. Mug, sugar, spoon. His brain is struggling, he’d almost forgot about everything else but this conversation.

“He wants to leave her.”

“Ah,” Matt nods, his eyes watching Elio closely.

Elio sighs.

“It’s not how you think. He and I, we - we used to be together. Two years ago.”

“Wow. Been going on for long, then?”

“No, no,” gosh, this is actually hard to explain. “He wasn’t - married, then. We met in Italy, but then, he - had to leave. We’ve started seeing each other again a couple of months ago. Just as - friends. At first.”

Matt nods again, and smiles, another one of his kind smiles. Every time he does that, Elio feels more at ease. Matt really doesn’t mean to judge.

“Sorry. It’s just that, I’ve seen situations like that before. It’s never easy.”

Elio stares at his cup of coffee, at the plumes of steam raising up from it.

“We’re just... we’re seeing each other now. I think - we need another chance. He told me he’s in love with me.”

“Are you in love with him?” Matt asks. “And by the way, if I’m being too intrusive, please feel free to tell me to fuck off.”

Elio smiles back at him. He’s actually grateful to finally have someone to talk about this with; very grateful.

“No, no. It’s fine.” He takes a breath. “And I think... I think I love him too. Yeah.”

“Okay. Well,” Matt pushes away from the kitchen counter, and sighs. “All I can say is, be careful? I guess?”

Elio nods. Bites his lower lip.

“I have to go to the library now, I’m so behind with theory I think I’ll have to retake the test three times,” Matt says, and starts walking out of the kitchen.

“Matt, listen,” Elio stops him before he goes. “Do you think Ash...how do you think he - thinks?” He doesn’t even know how to express it; he never had to be that careful at home. He takes a breath, and say the next words in one long exhale. “In case I - in case I wanted to bring Oliver here.”

“Ah. I don’t know, Elio. I’ve - haven’t had time to figure that out. For myself, too.”

Elio nods, and then offers a small smile to his roommate, who smiles back. In understanding.

 

 

 

 

 

Oliver leaves a note for Elio under the door later that day.

‘I would like to take you out. Tonight. If you’re free?’, it reads, and Elio’s heart leaps. Of course he’s free for a date with Oliver.

He leaves a note for him with the porter and gets the man to call Oliver straight away. They meet that evening, and around the corner from their building, Oliver takes his hand.

“I was thinking, dinner and a movie?” he murmurs gently, his fingers interlacing with Elio’s.

“How cliche,” Elio teases, but he’s smiling from ear to ear, and his cheeks feel warm.

“Still mocking me I see?” Oliver says, his eyes are glinting with amusement - and it’s just like back in Italy, when Elio would tease Oliver, mock his words, his fake stuck-up attitude.

“I would love to go for dinner and a movie, Oliver,” Elio says, smiling.

And Oliver smiles back, then pulls him into an alley, crowds him against the wall, just like in Italy, and kisses him.

 

 

 

 

 

When Elio gets back that night, Matt is dozing off on the couch, and Elio is actually happy to see him there.

He feels giddy, wired.

His date with Oliver was perfect. A proper, real date, with Elio’s favourite food, and them sitting at the back of a mostly empty theatre, even managing to steal a long, languid make-out session while the characters on screen investigated something neither of them cared to find out details of.

“Matt,” Elio whispers, sits next to him, shakes him lightly to wake him up.

“Mmh. You’re back,” Matt mumbles, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

Elio takes a deep breath.

“If Ash is home tomorrow, can you - can you cover for me?” He means distract him,make sure Ash doesn’t notice. “I want to bring Oliver back to my room. I think I’m going to have sex with him.”

He hasn’t even had anything to drink, but he’s so excited he doesn’t care if he’s saying too much. He needs to share this with someone. Matt is the only one who can understand.

“Ah, I see,” his roommate says. “I can - I can try.”

“Grazie grazie,” Elio thanks him, a big smile on his face. He can’t wait for tomorrow to be here.

He makes to get up, to go back to his room - but Matt speaks again.

“Just, be careful. Okay?”

Elio stops for a moment. He knows Matt isn’t referring to Ash. Ash doesn’t matter. He’s not the danger, here.

Elio pulls his lips into a smile. He’s grateful for Matt looking out for him, but he’ll be fine.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, and pats Matt’s knee, and leaves the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all of you who are following this story. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to really respond to comments, but I read ALL of them, and they make me happy!! 
> 
> Keep ‘em coming. :) xx


	11. Chapter 11

“I missed you so much,” Oliver says. His hands are holding onto Elio’s biceps, squeezing hard. “Please let me kiss you.”

Elio can’t say no to Oliver, to his lips that search for his. His smell is so familiar and loved that Elio feels weak, so defenceless.

Oliver is on top of him, between his legs, and Elio doesn’t remember when they took their clothes off. Or where they are. He doesn’t remember if he drank again, or how long they’ve been doing this for. All he can feel is Oliver, on top of him, around him, everywhere.

“I know you’re still mine,” Oliver growls between kisses to Elio’s jaw, his throat, his collarbone.

“But - you’re married,” Elio hears himself say.

“I can have both,” Oliver growls back. “Don’t you think? I want both of you.”

Elio feels Oliver bite his skin, kiss and kiss and then intertwine their fingers together, bringing Elio’s hands up and holding them down firmly on the pillow over his head. Like he used to do.

Elio’s heart is beating fast, so fast.

And then he wakes up.

He breathes hard, and his head is almost dizzy because of the intensity of his dream. It sounded and felt real, and Elio pulls up to sit on the bed, trying to reconnect with reality.

He’s hard.

He frowns to himself, as more details of his vision come to him.

Oliver’s hands. His warm breath. His rough kisses.

His words.

Elio blinks, and rubs the palm of his hand down his face.

That was a stupid dream. It’s probably just his anxiety, his overthinking - his brain worrying, worrying, not wanting to calm down.

He lies back down, exhales - looks at his watch. It’s five in the morning. He’ll have to be up in a couple of hours.

He’s still hard - fuck, this is the effect Oliver has on him. He could touch himself, now, come quickly, thinking of Oliver, his mouth and his broad shoulders, his tensed biceps, the way he can hold Elio down, the way he’s so much bigger than he is, but so tender with him, so attentive, so good at making Elio want to submit to him, take anything he wants to give him, moan helplessly, bare his throat for sharp bites and wet kisses...

He comes, and he has to take deep breaths to stop his head spinning. Fuck.

He needs to try and get a couple more hours of sleep. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply again, tries to get the feeling of Oliver’s lips on his, on his skin, out of his mind, for at least a little longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m free tonight. Have dinner with me again?”

 

 

 

Elio receives Oliver’s note the day after, and as usual, his heart leaps.

This time, Oliver meets him in the East Village, and as soon as he sees Elio he reaches out to intertwine their fingers together.

They walk, holding hands, where the sidewalk is emptier of people until they reach a little Italian bistrot; the waiter leads them to a table in a booth on the side.

Oliver is smiling, and it makes Elio happy.

They order pizza and pasta and end up sharing both, and the crodino Elio is drinking crackles on his tongue, another reminder of Italy and the bars in Crema in the summer. Elio loves how so many things around Oliver remind him of home, even though Oliver’s only been there once. But maybe, just maybe, Oliver will visit again. Elio feels quite positive it will happen. And so he wants to smile too.

They chat on the way back, after dinner, but Elio feels so distracted. His mind already home, already in his room, already alone with Oliver.

Oliver, who is looking at his mouth, his fingers skimming Elio’s sides and chest, as they talk on the subway, way too many times for it to be accidental. Both hovering really close to each other. It feels electric.

“Come back to mine?” Elio asks when they reach the entrance to their building. An echo of Oliver’s question to him some time before.

He can still taste the sweetness of the homemade tiramisu they had at dinner on his lips. He wants to let Oliver taste them, too.

Oliver smiles.

“Good thing we live in the same building,” he jokes, and Elio punches him playfully on the arm, Oliver laughing and ducking out of the way too late.

In the elevator, Oliver kisses him. It’s slow and gentle, and Elio can feel Oliver is trying to hold back until they get to his apartment. He lets him. He loves Oliver’s kisses, no matter what kind.

And anyway; when they get to their destination, it happens really quickly.

They manage to sneak into Elio’s room without anyone seeing them.

Elio closes his bedroom door behind them, and gasps when Oliver cages him against the wall, lifting Elio’s face up with a hand and looking into his eyes.

Elio doesn’t have time to get lost in Oliver’s gaze; Oliver kisses him, and this time it’s forceful, demanding, passionate. It makes Elio moan out loud.

“Fuck, get these clothes off,” Oliver growls and Elio chuckles quietly, and then helps Oliver’s impatient fingers to unlatch his shirt, and his trousers, while Oliver is still kissing him, not letting up for one moment.

Elio is overwhelmed; excited; scared.

He thinks of the mess his room is in. He thinks of his bed, and the old sheets he’s using, not freshly washed and neat like Mafalda always made sure they had back in Crema. He worries about so many things, he almost forgets he’s practically nude while Oliver’s still got all his clothes on. He wants to feel his skin, stroke his chest, the coarse hair on it, he wants to reacquaint himself with him.

He has the same awkwardness as he did two years ago the very first time they did this and his hands are trembling, but then Oliver pushes him towards the bed gently, though urgently, and Elio lays back, lets Oliver cover him with his body and resume their kissing that is now hungry, impatient, and is making Elio’s lips swollen.

He’s moaning, gentle sounds in Oliver’s mouth. Oliver responds with demanding breaths, wandering hands.

Elio wants him so much.

“I dreamt about this, last night,” Elio murmurs when Oliver lets him breathe.

The older man smirks.

“Really,” he growls softly. “What were we doing?”

Oliver’s teasing him, while he finishes undressing Elio, the boy’s underwear joining the rest of their clothes on the floor. Elio arches his back when he kisses his neck, his mind in overdrive.

“We were doing this. Having sex,” he manages to say.

“I like how your mind works.” Oliver murmurs again. His hands opening a packet of lube, the condom dropped on the bed sheets.

They never used a condom before.

Elio doesn’t tell Oliver about the rest of the dream. And what his mind had thought Oliver would say, about Elio, about his wife.

The first touch of Oliver’s fingers is shocking and electrifying at the same time and Elio tries with all his might to relax as much as he can. His body not wanting to cooperate; he inhales sharply at the first breach.

“Relax,” Oliver keeps murmuring, against Elio’s neck. Elio can smell the scent of his hair, he loves it, he loves everything. “Relax, baby. It’s me. It’s just me.”

Elio has to close his eyes at his words. They feel like a warm, slow caress. He takes a deep breath.

“It’s been too long,” he murmurs back. My body has forgotten you, Oliver. It’s been too long.

“I know.” Oliver just says. “It’s okay. Relax.”

Oliver kisses him and Elio focuses on his mouth, and soon after his body gives in. It pinches so beautifully, Elio missed it, missed Oliver’s hands, his fingers, missed Oliver’s body inside him.

When Oliver pushes inside him, Elio’s legs over his shoulders, it hurts; it hurts, like the first time they did it, like the first time Oliver did this and Elio had him inside his body. He feels like he’s losing his virginity to him all over again, and Elio loves thinking that can happen. That it’s happening.

“Are you okay?” Oliver asks against his skin. He’s still, over Elio. His hands in Elio’s hair.

“Yes,” Elio reassures. Oliver still feels huge inside him, but his body is remembering. “Please, Oliver. Please.”

It starts slow. Oliver drawing back, and pushing in; at first, they kiss through it. Elio just thinks: nothing’s changed. This is how it should be. You’re mine again, Oliver...

“I missed you,” Oliver chants against Elio’s cheek. He’s almost delirious, and Elio smiles, filled with happiness. “I missed this.”

“I missed it too,” Elio promises back. Because it’s the truth. He missed it so much. Sex with Oliver should belong to him; only to Elio. No one else.

When Oliver quickens his pace, holding onto Elio’s hips, Elio arches his back, his body finally accepting and welcoming and craving pleasure. And Oliver is giving him so much pleasure.

“Let me feel you come,” Oliver’s voice asks in the air between them, and it’s deep, and rough, Elio almost comes right that moment.

“Come on, baby. Let me feel you.”

Elio arches his back, closes his eyes, cries out when Oliver’s hand strokes, and pulls his orgasm from him; then Oliver wrings it out, for a few long minutes, asks Elio’s body to give more, more, more, as he chases his own pleasure, and then lays on Elio, exhausted, breathing hard, his body still inside his body.

 

 

 

 

“I like your room,” Oliver says a little later, as they lay on the bed, Elio’s head on his chest and Oliver’s arm around the boy. “Different from Italy.”

“Ah.” Elio hides his face into Oliver’s shoulder playfully. “Sorry. It’s a mess. Mafalda would kill me if she saw.”

Oliver kisses the top of his head.

“No no, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just - different. A different representation of you.”

Elio takes a breath.

“Yeah. Well. A lot has happened, a lot has- changed.”

He feels Oliver sigh, too; his broad chest gently raising and deflating.

“We never talked about what happened. After. You never told me about the last two years.”

Elio blinks for a moment; stares at the wall, grey in the darkness of the room.

“Not much to tell. I graduated high school. Got into Juilliard. Came here.”

“Mmmh,” Oliver’s mumble is gently chiding. “I know that. But I mean... with you. With Marzia... or. You know. Anyone else.”

Elio looks up, blinks again as he looks at Oliver.

Is he really asking him if he had others after him? Is this really what he wants to know?

“You know I was never in love with Marzia.”

“Mhh.”

Elio sighs. Maybe telling Oliver is the right thing to do. It’s what he deserves.

“I saw someone for a little while. The brother of a friend. But we never...we never did - much. He - he wasn’t for me.”

Oliver’s hand on Elio’s naked back stops his slow caress; his fingers curl. Elio feels his fingertips over his shoulder blades.

“I shouldn’t have left.” Oliver’s voice is flat. Emotionless. “I shouldn’t have left you there.”

Elio looks up at him again for a long moment; trying hard not to frown, in confusion.

He’s spent so many months in regret - regret for not having fought harder to make Oliver stay; not having asked him, not having gone with him, even. Regret at having wasted so many days.

And now, Oliver is telling him he regrets too. He regrets leaving, he regrets letting Elio belong to others. He’s jealous of them. Even as he promised himself to someone else.

Elio pulls up a little, and reaches towards Oliver’s face, his mouth. Kisses him. It’s the only thing he can do.

They’re together now. Aren’t they? They can fix it. They can make it better.

He feels Oliver’s hands cradle his face, the familiar, possessive touch of him on Elio’s cheeks, fingers in his hair. He lets Oliver deepen the kiss; he knows this is the prelude to another round of lovemaking. Everything’s changed, but also, nothing has. And Elio vows to keep it this way.


	12. Chapter 12

Elio wakes up, and his hand searches for Oliver on the other side of the bed, instinctively, like he used to do back in Crema. He finds it empty; yet another echo of Crema two years ago.

Except this time there is no Billowy waiting for him on the bed, washed of the combined evidence of their lovemaking but still smelling of them. This time, Elio finds a note, and he sits up to read it, blinking sleep away from his eyes impatiently.

 

 

 

 

Sorry for not waking you up before I left. You were sleeping so peacefully. 

I had to run, have some things to take care of.

You were wonderful last night.

Talk soon.

Oliver 

 

 

 

 

Just like two years ago with Billowy, Elio clasps the note to his chest, and takes a deep breath. His heart had already started its usual galloping, his mind believing something was wrong, and that’s why Oliver had left a note and fled.

Nothing is wrong, it seems.

And yet Elio can’t shake the disappointment he feels right now. 

He blinks again, tells himself he’s being too sensitive. Sighing, he drops the note back on the mattress - the sheet is crumpled, pulled at the corners, from them last night - and then he gets up.

 

 

 

 

Matt finds him at the breakfast table in the living room, cradling a bowl of cereal to his chest, distractedly watching something on tv while eating.

“Good day yesterday?” Matt asks, grabbing orange juice from the fridge. His healthy streak is apparently still going strong. “Or should I say - good night?”

Elio frowns.

“It was good. Yeah.”

“Mmh,” Matt makes a noise, while he drinks from his glass. “From what I heard, I think it was more than good...”

“What? What do you mean? You heard?” Elio’s eyes go wide in half an instant, his face goes red. “Oh my god.”

But Matt is laughing.

“I’m just kidding! Just kidding, Elio. I didn’t hear anything,” he promises, still smirking a little - but at least now Elio can breathe.

“But he came over, yeah? Stayed the night? Things must be good.”

Elio stirs his cereal in the milk that’s left in his bowl; they’re all soggy and soft by now.

“He didn’t stay the night. He-“ and here he pauses; wonders if he should say anything at all. “He left while I was still asleep. Left me a note.”

“What did the note say?”

“That he didn’t want to wake me up, and that he had some stuff to sort out.”

Matt nods.

“Okay. It doesn’t sound too bad. When are you going to hear from him again?”

Elio abandons the bowl on the counter with a sigh.

“I don’t know? He didn’t say. And I don’t - I don’t have his number, so I can’t - call him.”

“I think you should ask him for his number next time. You can’t just wait for him to get in touch all the time.”

Elio looks at Matt. “Yeah. I know.”

“He knows you wouldn’t call him to cause troubles. And wasn’t he breaking up with his wife, anyway?” Matt asks, opening the fridge again, inspecting its content. There isn’t much in there; Elio suspects he is only doing it to make Elio feel less under scrutiny.

“He was. He is. Yeah,” Elio says, nodding. He doesn’t feel like saying anything more.

 

 

 

 

A day later, and Elio’s about to leave the building to go study in the library, when he crosses paths with Oliver. The older man is just coming in now, and spots Elio by concierge, smiles at him. He seems in kind of a rush.

“Hey,” Elio greets, and his eyes brighten up, he can feel it.

He hesitates, not knowing what to do; but Oliver picks up his mail, and then, quickly, says: “you okay?”

“Yeah, Yeah, all okay,” Elio responds, kind of startled. Oliver nods; and then smiles again, and walks away, towards the elevator. Elio stays frozen just by the entrance, schoolbag on his shoulder.

He considers for a moment but then, as he hears the elevator ding, and sees Oliver stepping in, he calls him, and runs towards the sliding doors, jumping in there with him. The doors close, and they’re alone, and look at each other.

“Thought you were going out?” Oliver asks.

Elio swallows; and then closes the distance between them, steps on tiptoes and kisses Oliver on the mouth, moans softly against his lips.

His schoolbag falls to the floor.

 

 

 

 

They have sex against the wall in Elio’s bedroom, Oliver supporting Elio’s legs wrapped around his waist and thrusting hard into him until Elio thinks he can’t take it anymore. Then Oliver carries him to the bed, lays him down gently, strokes and touches and makes love to him with his hands and mouth and god, Elio missed Oliver sucking him.

When Oliver starts fucking him again, Elio’s sore, and spent, and overwhelmed with pleasure.

 

 

 

 

“How come you had to leave so early yesterday?” Elio asks as they lay next to each other in bed afterwards, catching their breath, Oliver’s arm around his shoulders. He tries to keep his voice soft; he doesn’t mean to complain.

“Sorry,” Oliver sighs. “I had some things to do.”

Elio looks at him for a moment, pouting a little. “I wanted to wake up with you.”

Oliver mmmhs against Elio’s shoulder. His eyes stay closed; his long eyelashes dark on his cheekbones.

Elio nudges his forehead with his nose. “Are you not going to say anything?”, he asks, quietly.

Oliver’s eyes open, and he gazes at Elio. “Sorry.” He presses a kiss to Elio’s arm.

It’s not what Elio was asking.

Outside of Elio’s room, the front door to the apartment slams closed. Laughter comes through, words thrown back and forth by male voices - Ash and some friends.

“Your roommates?” Oliver murmurs, lips moving against Elio’s arm, voice groggy.

Elio sighs.

“Yeah. One of them.”

“Well. I - should be going, anyway. I have quite a lot of work to do,” Oliver says, and pulls up to sitting, reaches to grab his shirt, discarded somewhere on the bed earlier in their haste to get naked for each other. “But someone distracted me.”

Elio gives a smile at the joke, although it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s just to appease Oliver; he doesn’t want him to go so soon.

“Do you think you could give me your phone number?” Elio asks, pulling up to lean on his elbow, bites his lip in nervousness. He’s still naked, the bed sheet covering him from the waist down. “Just to check when you’re free next. I’d be careful.”

Oliver looks at him for a moment, smiles, and then reaches out to kiss him briefly on the lips.

“I’ll get in touch. Things are still - difficult. I just have to see how to sort this.”

Elio watches him get up from the bed, pull his jeans on; with an energy Elio doesn’t feel. He suddenly wants to sleep, but he can’t.

“I’ll see you out,” he says, and pulls on his sweater and pants, goes to check at the door to make sure Ash is in the living room and not the hallway.

He lets Oliver kiss his mouth again, just before he opens the front door, and leaves.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for posting in the wrong fic!!! Haha. I am travelling so trying to update quickly when I have some internet... thanks for flagging this!! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter anyway... love xx

It’s raining outside, and it makes for a rather grim Wednesday, especially as the temperature has dropped considerably as winter takes over.

Curled up on the couch, a blanket over his shoulders, Elio reads one of the books he needs to finish for the test he’s got coming up on Friday. He feels adequately confident about what he knows on the subject; but he does need to read more. He’s really tried not to get too distracted, lately, with everything going on - but it’s been hard. His mind keeps wandering. Always flying back to one person.

Elio bites the inside of his cheek in frustration. He rereads the last passage he’s gone through. He’s bored. Perhaps he needs a break.

And as if on cue, the phone rings.

“Hello?”

A very familiar, very welcome voice responds.

“Hey, Goose. It’s me.”

“Oliver!” Elio smiles into the receiver. Suddenly, he’s absolutely alert.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I was just trying to - revise a little bit. You?”

Oliver clears his throat.

“Yeah, fine. You got an exam?”

“On Friday.”

“Ah,” Oliver breathes, and Elio thinks he can hear him smiling. “I was just calling because - I have to go to Boston this weekend. Have a conference on Sunday morning. So I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?”

Elio almost drops his notebook.

“With you? To Boston?”

“Yeah. If you want.”

“How long for?”

Oliver, Elio swears, smiles again.

“I’m going on Friday evening. Coming back late Sunday.” He hesitates a moment, but when he speaks again, his voice is firm. “Come with me?”

Elio smiles against the receiver.

“I - Oliver, I would love to.”

“Excellent!” Oliver sounds really excited. Perhaps just as excited as Elio feels. “Okay, then - we’ll leave around 4pm on Friday? That okay with you?”

Elio nods, to himself.

“Yeah. Yeah, that works. See you in the lobby at 4pm.”

“Okay.” Oliver sounds pleased, and Elio is pleased, too. “See you then. Can’t wait.”

When they hang up, Elio’s heart is thrumming steadily, and he clutches the receiver to his chest, smiling, already thinking ahead to the weekend.

He can’t wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday, Elio leaves a note on the kitchen table for his flatmates - Matt in particular. He reminds them he’ll be away for the whole weekend, in case they forget, and end up wondering where he’s disappeared to.

He finds Oliver downstairs, waiting for him. He looks so handsome - in long dark trousers, an equally long navy coat, scarf, and a radiant smile.

Elio smiles back for him and then Oliver is leading them outside, and to the underground parking lot. Elio has never even been there.

“I rented a car. We should be in Boston in about four hours.”

Oliver points to a blue sedan parked nearby, and once they’re inside, suitcase in tow, he locks the doors, and then leans towards Elio; kisses him on the mouth.

Slow, languorous.

“Did you really bring me to the parking lot to do this?” Elio asks, giggles in amusement.

Oliver shrugs.

“I wanted to kiss you.”

He starts the car, drives them out of the parking lot and into the road.

Elio smiles, looks outside the window. This trip has already started well.

 

 

 

 

 

They spend the whole drive chatting and listening to music on the radio. They tell each other about their week; Oliver talks about the chapter he had to write for his book, and how his editor sent it back five times for amendments. Elio tells him about the composition theory test he took that morning, and how it made some of the students cry.

It’s nice to laugh together, and Oliver smiles at him so often that Elio could get used to it.

When they arrive in Boston, Oliver checks them into their hotel. And once they go up to the room, Elio beams.

“Wow, Oliver,” he says, looks around. “This is really nice.”

It’s an upmarket hotel in a really attractive part of Boston. The bathroom has a separate bathtub and shower, like in Italy.

The hotel has left chocolates on the coffee table.

Elio looks outside the window, and then turns towards Oliver; and in a couple of steps, Oliver is on him. Cups his face in a warm hand, tilts it upwards; and leans down to kiss him.

It’s not a brief, affectionate kiss.

It gets deep soon, Oliver pushing his tongue inside Elio’s mouth. But it’s also slow, lazy; Oliver runs his fingers through Elio’s curls, at his nape, while his other hand strokes down Elio’s shoulders and back. Down to his backside.

Elio can’t help but moan. Whimper in Oliver’s mouth, suddenly needy.

It looks like sex is the first item on their schedule for the weekend.

 

 

 

 

Oliver had kissed him for a while longer and then started to undress him - taking off his shirt, unzipping his shorts.

He pulled them down and then made Elio walk backwards towards the bed, to fall on his back on it. And then he crawled over, caged Elio with his arms at either side of his face, and took his mouth in another deep, urgent kiss.

He’d touched him, with his fingers inside, and Elio moaned loud in his mouth; anticipating the push, the sensation of Oliver inside him. They were urgent and impatient and Oliver just about remembered to wear the condom - Elio growled against his mouth, fuck that condom, fuck that, he wishes they didn’t have to use it.

Then Oliver had held Elio’s wrists up over his head, his biceps contracting as he hovered over the boy, hips pushed against Elio’s. Elio had felt like he couldn’t breathe - in the best of ways.

 

 

 

After, Elio naps for a while in bed next to Oliver, and when he wakes up, the older man kisses his forehead and wraps his arm tighter around him. The tv is quietly chattering in the background.

“Sorry,” Elio murmurs against Oliver. “Had to get up so early today.”

“Don’t apologize.” Oliver kisses his forehead again. “What do you want to do tonight?”

Elio blinks sleepiness from his eyes, and considers for a moment. It’s cold outside, the ice coloured sky a promise of snow, or frost at the very least. It’s cozy in their room and he’s wrapped in Oliver and a thick, white comforter; the decision is easy.

“Could we hang out here tonight?” Elio whispers, looking up at Oliver with playful puppy dog eyes. “We can go out tomorrow?”

Oliver smiles.

“Of course we can.”

“We can watch something on tv. Like a crappy movie or something.”

Oliver chuckles, and reaches out for the remote. He flips between channels; settles on what looks like a romantic comedy, even though neither of them know the title. It doesn’t matter, anyway.

They lay for a while, Elio’s head on Oliver’s shoulder. Elio giggles every now and then.

“Yes, this is a crappy movie alright,” he comments, with another chuckle. He looks up, and Oliver is staring at him. His gaze intense.

He kisses Elio again. Elio sighs, in pleasure. He almost can’t believe he’s in Boston, alone with Oliver, kissing in bed with him, with so much time to be lazy together, naked, skin against skin. With winter outside and Oliver’s strong body surrounding him, holding him. He feels safe.

Happy.

Oliver’s hand strokes down his body as they kiss, pinching Elio’s nipple until he whimpers, caressing the juncture of his hipbone and thigh, kissing him deeply the whole time.

When he allows Elio to come up for air, the boy runs his hands through Oliver’s hair, nudging his face to look down at him.

“Can we just kiss, for a while?” Elio pants. His voice deep, rough. “Just kiss. For a little bit.”

Oliver looks back at him for a long moment, and then he smiles.

“Sure.”

His hand slides back up, slowly - leaving a fiery thread on Elio’s skin where it touches.He cups Elio’s face, and starts kissing him again.

 

 

 

 

Saturday is made of breakfast at the cafe around the corner from their hotel, a stroll in the park, a walk in the city centre, stopping at a large bookshop to browse, and, in the case of Elio, to finally buy the two books he’d been wanting to read for a long time.

Then there’s dinner, and then another walk back to the hotel. Oliver holds his hand for some of it, and it makes Elio smile wide.

 

 

 

On Sunday morning, Elio wakes up in time to see Oliver get ready for his conference.

Hair mussed, and still naked from the night before with just the duvet to cover half his body, Elio chews his lower lip as he watches Oliver pull on a pair of trousers.

“I want to ask you something,” Elio says, and then sighs. “But you’ll get mad at me.”

“Why would I get mad?” Oliver responds, looking through his suitcase. “I won’t.”

Sitting up on the bed, Elio bites his lip.

“What did you say to your - to Jennifer? About this weekend?”

Oliver stands in front of the mirror, and Elio wishes he could see his reflection. See his expression.

“I told her the truth. I have a conference in Boston.”

“But the conference is only today. And you’ve left on Friday.”

Oliver takes a breath, and then turns around towards Elio; he walks slowly to the bed, sits next to him.

“I told you things are difficult between us right now. We just - we try to have our own space. We don’t go into details.”

Elio frowns.

“But - how do you know... where you stand. If you don’t talk.” He’s probably not making sense, so he tries again. “I mean, this situation isn’t going to take you anywhere.”

Next to him, Oliver sighs. He raises a hand, and strokes a curl back behind Elio’s ear.

“Must we talk about this, now?”

Elio looks up at him, his mouth downturned.

“We don’t have to, but you just - you said you wanted to leave her. And so I’m - how do you get there, if you don’t - you don’t tell her.”

It’s not what he wanted to say, or how he wanted to say it, but it’s close enough. Elio takes a breath, bites his lip again, and waits for Oliver to process what he said.

“I told you it’s more difficult than this. Divorce is complicated, and especially in my situation, in my wife’s situation and with her beliefs, and my parents’s beliefs. It’s hard for people to understand.”

Elio juts his chin out, looking seriously at Oliver.

“Try me.”

But Oliver just shakes his head. Sighs.

“You’re too young.”

The words make Elio frown - again; even harder than before.

Too young? Is that how it works?

He’s too young, he can’t understand. He’s just a child. Oliver doesn’t need to tell him what the hell is going on. A child wouldn’t understand.

Perfect.

“I see. I’m nineteen, so I must be dumb, right. I have no life experience, so how can I understand anything.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it, then? What does my age have to do with it?”

“Maybe that you haven’t gone through anything of the sort, and so I am asking you to - listen to me. Stop questioning.”

Stop questioning. Stop bothering him. Keep wondering, keep thinking about him and his wife, just like he was forced to keep thinking about Oliver getting married two years ago. This is what he means.

Elio sets his jaw. Glances at Oliver, just once; and then he gets up, and goes to the bathroom. 

“Enjoy the conference,” he calls back to him. Slams the door behind himself.

There’s silence for a while. And then there’s some rustling; and finally, the noise from a door closing.

Oliver’s gone.


	14. Chapter 14

_I had to go to the conference. I’m sorry._

 

_I’ll be done by around noon._

_Please, let’s talk._

 

_I love you._

_\- Oliver_

 

 

 

The hotel cafe is quiet. Elio’s been sitting at a table in the corner for the past hour, reading one of his books. The waitress keeps bringing him tea refills every now and then.

Oliver’s note is hidden between the pages of the book, one corner sticking out messily from it, and looking at it reminds Elio why he’s still here.

He was fully planning on leaving. Going to the train station, somehow, getting a train back to New York. But would that have been helpful for anything, aside from placating a bout of anger in the moment?

Elio knows it wasn’t going to improve things, let alone fix them. He doesn’t want Oliver to think he’s ‘too young’, then he needs to act like an adult.

After reading Oliver’s note, written in blue ink, in that spidery handwriting Oliver has and which Elio will never forget, Elio thought about what to do. He thought and thought, laying on their unmade bed that still smelled like them.

Then he wrote his own note to him. ‘Gone to the cafe. Find me there.’

He took his book, and sat there at one of the tables, trying to concentrate on the words he was reading, trying not to think of Oliver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s just past twelve when Oliver appears.

Elio looks up from the page he was reading, sees him, and then looks back down, puts the book away in the school bag he’s brought with him in lieu of a suitcase.

“How was the conference,” he asks, no inflection to his voice.He isn’t looking at Oliver, but he can feel him staring.

There’s a moment of silence.

“I thought about you the whole time.”

Elio looks up again at Oliver’s words. He finds the other man’s eyes, blue, and worried. Unsure.

Elio looks away.

“I’m sorry, for - what I said. I used the wrong words. I didn’t mean it,” Oliver says. He sits down at the little table in front of Elio.

“I don’t know what to say,” Elio tells him. He’s being sincere.

“Can we go and talk in our room?” Oliver asks, but Elio frowns, and so he urges to add: “Just talk. I promise.”

Elio is tempted to say no. He’s upset with Oliver, but he still doesn’t trust himself, doesn’t trust his own, constant desire for intimacy with him.

Yet, he knows they need privacy.And so he nods.

 

 

 

 

“I’m sorry. This was supposed to be a nice trip for us.” Oliver says when they’re back in the room. He’s standing by the wardrobe, almost as if he’s afraid of approaching Elio, who’s sitting on the bed, not looking at him.

“I’m sorry I ruined it.”

Elio glances his way for a moment, and then looks away, towards the window, outside. The sky is still grey.

Oliver sighs. He walks to the bed, sits on the edge next to Elio.

“I was seeing Jennifer on and off before I came to Italy, two years ago. When I got back to New England, I had to... we had to get married. My parents know her, know her parents. My father, he... he would have not accepted anything else.”

It is obvious what’s hidden behind those words, and, though still refusing to look at Oliver, Elio feels a pang of pain in his heart. His fingers clutch the bed cover, unconsciously.

“You weren’t with her? When - when you were with me?” Elio asks. His voice low, questioning. Tentative.

“No. No, baby.” Oliver takes another breath. “Elio. Will you look at me, please?”

With a tiny shrug - a pretence of disinterest - and his eyes already red rimmed, Elio turns towards Oliver.

Oliver speaks, looking directly at Elio, serious.

“I wasn’t with anyone else, when I was with you.” He sighs again.

“I would have married you. Two years ago. I would have married you.”

The pang in Elio’s heart has become more of a pulsating pain, and for a moment, it takes his breath away.

He looks at Oliver, searches his face for traces of insincerity - but he finds none.

It’s a confirmation that makes him feel strange. Elated, on one hand, imagining to be married to Oliver, in his wife’s place; and distraught.

At what could have been, but can’t be.

“I just,” he starts, and thankfully his voice works. “I just don’t know how long this will last. With - her. What you said, I... I don’t know what we’re doing.”

Oliver sighs again.

“I’m not lying, Elio. I want to leave her. I don’t want to be with her.” He reaches out with his hand, slowly, as if to give Elio the time to pull back, should he not want his touch. When Elio doesn’t move, Oliver’s fingers stroke his ear, down his cheek, delicately.

“I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you.” His fingers reach Elio’s mouth. “I love you.”

His eyes are so intense. A deep, turquoise blue that steals Elio’s gaze, keeps it chained.

“I love you too,” Elio finds himself whispering back to him.

And Oliver kisses him.

 

 

 

 

 

“So what did you do?” Matt asks him, when Elio tells him about his weekend the day after, tells him about what happened on Sunday morning.

Elio sighs, keeps his eyes on the drawer he’s rummaging into to find a spoon for his soup.

“We spent some time together, and then - he drove me back. That’s all.”

They kissed, lay in bed together. Made love again. But Elio doesn’t mention details.

“You didn’t talk any more?”

“No,” Elio says. “I didn’t know what to say. He’s promised me he wants to leave her - I don’t know - what am I supposed to say?”

His eyes are on Matt, and he feels almost defensive.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Matt nods, and then thinks for a moment. And then his eyes light up.

“Tell you what. Why don’t we go out tonight? It’s student night at the Grayson. It’s always fun.”

Elio smiles.

“It’s Monday...”

“All the more reasons!” Matt is smiling, already sold on his own idea. “Come on. It’ll be great. It will take your mind off things for a bit. Just us two.”

Elio considers for a moment, and then smiles again. Wider.

“Sure. Why not.”

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

The club is full almost to the brim, and loud, but Elio and Matt manage to squeeze into a corner early enough to grab two stalls there and sit and watch as more and more students populate the room.

Matt has a fake ID (‘We need to get you one too, Elio’, he promises) and he gets them drinks - a couple of rum and cokes, with a double shot of alcohol for good measure.

Even though there’s music playing, they manage to talk. Matt tells him about growing up in Indiana. The friends he’s left when he moved to New York City; the friends he’s lost when he realised they would never be accepting of him.He’s not homesick; not really. New York City is a new beginning for him.

“I am excited to live here, but I do miss Italy. I think seeing Oliver again reminded me how much I miss it,” Elio tells him.

Matt takes another sip of his drink.

“How did you two meet?”

“He was my father’s intern. Was with us for six weeks.”

Matt nods.

“Older?”

“He was twenty four. That was two years ago.”

“Ah,” Matt smiles. “The charm of the older man.”

Elio shakes his head.

“No, it wasn’t that. I mean, maybe a bit. He was just - he had this charm, in general.” He pauses for a moment. He feels warm; the alcohol travelling through his system already. “He was - my first.”

His roommate nods. Takes another sip of his drink.

“Have you ever - been with anyone else? After him?” A pause. “A man, I mean.”

“I saw this guy for a bit, but, I... didn’t really want to do anything. Didn’t feel right. We broke it off quite soon anyway.”

Elio is surprised at how talkative he’s being. He’s certain the drink has something to do with it - but he doesn’t mind.He rolls his eyes, to himself more than anything, and smiles.

“Can you believe that we just met again... by accident? Like. He lives in the same building as us. On the eight floor.”

Elio thoroughly enjoys Matt’s eyes widening in disbelief.

“Jesus Christ. I can’t believe this. So this whole time... you’ve been seeing someone with his wife just two floors above??” He stops for a moment. “Shit, sorry. Didn’t mean to be... I don’t know.”

Elio shrugs.

“It’s okay. It’s true, so.”

He looks around, at the crowd now in the club. Some people dancing; some drinking. Some laughing amongst themselves.

He wonders what Oliver is doing. If he’s talking to his wife. If he’s telling her he’s leaving her.He closes his eyes for a moment, and then opens them again. Yep, the drink is kicking in.

“Hey, Elio,” Matt kind of whispers, and kind of leans into him in order to do so. “Can I ask you- would you... would you be with someone else? Aside from - aside from Oliver?”

Elio frowns for a moment, thinking. Aside from Oliver? He hasn’t really thought of anyone else. He doesn’t really know who else he could like. And he loves Oliver; he can’t really love someone else, while he’s in love with Oliver.

But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be with someone else. He could. He just doesn’t want to.

“Yeah, I think so,” he says, honestly. But he really wants to make sense. “I think so. I just haven’t really... thought about it.”

“Maybe you should,” Matt says. He drinks more, the glass is almost empty. “You should think about it. There’s plenty of people who would - who think you’re attractive.”

Elio smirks. “Ok.”

“You should believe me. I think you’re really cute. I think you’re hot.”

Matt smiles at him, and then he gets up. “I’m going to get us another couple of drinks.”

And Elio is a little dumbfounded. Matt thinks he’s hot? Matt is attracted to him?

His head is spinning. He had never thought Matt could see it that way. He’d never thought Matt could like him.

He watches him as he comes back with two more glasses, and the alcohol must be stationing in his brain now because it feels to him like Matt has just got up, and instead he’s back already. 

He thinks of kissing him. How it could be.

He only kissed Damiano a few times and it felt wrong, so wrong, after Oliver, it felt like he was only doing it for the act and without anything behind it, nothing beyond the physical sensation. And even that hadn’t been what he wanted; he was used to Oliver. He wanted Oliver.

So now, now that he can kiss Oliver again, kissing someone else would feel even stranger. Probably wrong. Foreign.

Matt leans in again to speak.

“Listen, Elio, I... I don’t want anything to change. Nothing needs to change. I like you, but - you don’t have to do anything about it. You like Oliver. I know that. You love him.” His voice is so sure, so firm as he says this. And then he sighs. “I just wish he’d realise how stupidly lucky he is.”

Elio blinks, and then looks down, at his shoes, at his feet finding purchase at the foot of the stool while his head spins. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Come on. Let’s go home. This is gonna die down in half an hour, trust me.” Matt nudges Elio on the back gently while he gets up. “We can come back at the weekend, the music will be better for sure.”

Elio knows this is an excuse, but he doesn’t question it. He just nods, and follows Matt out of the club.

 

 

 

 

 

When they get back to their building, Elio is craving a cigarette - it happens when he drinks. The trip back from the club with Matt has been kind of strange; certainly for Elio. He was thinking too much. He was thinking of Oliver, of his wife, of their situation, of two years ago. The alcohol just unleashed all his thoughts, no filter for him to shield his mind from them, and even though he tried to concentrate on what Matt was saying - he was talking about college? The holiday he would go on if he had the money, the trip to Europe he will take after graduation - his brain kept wandering off.

Oliver Oliver Oliver.

He tells Matt he wants to smoke a cigarette outside.

“I’ll go upstairs and phone the take out place? Order us some food,” Matt says, he’s still kind of drunk, and it makes Elio smile.

Elio smokes, and thinks. The cold December air biting at his face.

He wants to go to Oliver’s floor. He doesn’t even know why, what for. He doesn’t know Oliver’s apartment number; but perhaps he’ll find out? Perhaps he’ll see him?

He perfectly knows this is ridiculous - it’s what a fool would do, a lovelorn Romeo trying to get a glimpse of the object of his affection - obsession, by now. A bit like in Italy, when he used to hang around downstairs by Oliver’s window. One step away from throwing stones at the glass, begging for attention, for a word, for scraps. Before it all started, before he knew that Oliver liked him too.

Perhaps he’s only thinking this because he’s drunk, or he would know better.

He keeps smoking, hoping that the cigarette will help clear his mind a little.

Until he hears a voice.

Oliver’s voice.

Elio’s almost about to go back to the door to meet him, when he hears someone else, a female voice, a woman, replying to him as they come out of the entrance.

Elio hides to the side, behind a pillar. When they walk to the street, he can see them from where he is.

He holds his breath.

The woman has long chestnut hair and is wearing a dress under a dark blue coat. A taxi is waiting by the curb. Oliver carries a suitcase, and the driver helps him put it in the car.

“I’ll be back in two days,” the woman says, and steps forward, wraps her arms around Oliver and hugs him. He hugs her back, his hands on her waist.

Elio sees Oliver nod when they part, hears him as he says “have a good flight.” And the woman smiles, her eyes round, Elio can’t see the color but the make up around them is perfect. She reaches out once again, and kisses Oliver. On the cheek, but it’s so close to his mouth that Elio almost feels sick.

He stares at the whole scene, until the taxi leaves, taking the woman with it. Elio doesn’t move, can’t move, as if he’s having some sort of out of body experience where he can just watch what’s happening around him but cannot do anything about it.

He is only brought to reality by what’s left of his cigarette burning the tips of his fingers where he was still holding it. He curses quietly, and drops it - but Oliver’s heard him.

“Elio?” The older man says, turning around towards him. “Elio - what...”

Elio sets his jaw. Ignores the crazed beating of his heart in his chest. He sets his jaw and frowns, and only gives Oliver one look, before he walks quickly back inside the building with no other acknowledgment or response towards Oliver.

He goes into the elevator, thinks ‘please hurry the hell up’, wishes for the door to slam closed right now, wanting to get out of there, get out of Oliver trying to give him a phoney explanation, an excuse for what just happened. He doesn’t want to hear it.

He hears Oliver call his name once more but if he does chase after him, Elio doesn’t know, because the elevator doors close before he can see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he gets to his apartment, Matt looks up at him from where he is sitting on one of the kitchen stools, and his face is a picture of alarm.

“What’s wrong? Something happen?”

“I’m such an idiot,” Elio says. His voice just a whisper. He forces himself to breathe. “Such an idiot.”

He clutches his fingers around the edges of the breakfast table until his knuckles turn white. He needs to keep it together; but his eyes are stinging.

Matt doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t ask.He just walks over to him, and places a hand on his back, rubs gently, to calm him down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still a while to go until the happy ending!! 
> 
> Please leave me a comment if you are enjoying this story. X


	16. Chapter 16

When the phone rings, the day after in the evening, it’s Matt who picks up.

“Oliver on the phone,” he whispers to Elio, covering the receiver with a hand. “He wants to speak to you. What do you want me to say?”

Elio frowns. He looks at the sandwich he was making; Oliver has the power to make his appetite disappear.

“Tell him I’m not home. I don’t want to talk to him.”

Matt looks at him for a moment, and then nods.

“Hey, Oliver, listen, Elio’s not home right now. Maybe try later?”

Elio wants to smirk at Matt saying ‘later’ to Oliver. Oh, the irony.He grabs a beer from the fridge, and another one for Matt; they belong to Ash, but he’s just turned twenty-one and gone on a shopping spree of everything alcoholic he could find. He’s got plenty, and so Elio doesn’t feel too bad.

“Let’s go out tonight?” Elio says. “I had fun last night.”

Matt looks at him, and Elio can tell he’s seeing right through his words. But he sighs, so Elio knows he’s given in.

“Sure. Where do you want to go?”

Elio thinks for a moment.

“Do you know any good gay places?”

Matt stares for a moment, then laughs, and rolls his eyes.

“Of course I do! Come on, eat up, and let’s go.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They use Matt’s fake id again, and by the time the clock turns nine pm Elio is already on his fourth beer. He knows Matt is keeping a close eye on him, and he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t feel like thinking tonight.

“I feel like I have to be your protector right now,” Matt laughs, and rolls his eyes as well - Elio’s signature habit has rubbed off on him too. “Look at all these men with their eye on you.”

Elio laughs.

“Shut up. And anyway, you can be my protector, I don’t mind.”

The alcohol is warming up his veins, and he knows he’s being flirty, but he’s fine with it. The last thing he want to do is think of Oliver. Oliver, who’s still with his wife, Oliver who waved her goodbye yesterday, his perfect wife, the one he wants to keep while he lies to Elio? 

Elio will not think of him. And if he does, he will think that Oliver is alone tonight. And hopefully he’s wondering where Elio is - and with who.

Good riddance.

“I just - want to make sure you’re okay. After what happened, you know...”

“It’s fine,” Elio shakes his head, his curls falling over his forehead messily. “You shouldn’t be thinking about that. I’m not thinking about that.”

Matt nods, a suspicious look in his eyes. “Sure.”

Elio smiles.

“Can we just have some fun tonight? Have another beer.”

“I don’t want to leave you here on your own. You’re kinda drunk.”

The music is getting louder, and Elio drinks the last of his beer. Two guys are dancing together not far from them; their faces are so close. Elio wonders if they’re a couple. He wonders how it would be, to go out, like a couple, a real couple,where nobody has a wife or a lover on the side.

He leans back against the wall, suddenly deflated.

“Hey,” Matt says, and comes closer. He combs Elio’s curls back from his forehead. “You okay, honey?”

Elio’s head is spinning, but he knows it’s because of the alcohol, and he hasn’t eaten much all day. He’s going to get even skinnier, isn’t he, his hipbones will stick out out of his hips, Oliver will tell him off when he sees him.

What is he thinking? Oliver will not see him. Oliver will not see him again.

He doesn’t answer Matt, but he clutches a patch of his shirt on his chest, a bit like an anchor to reality, and then - and then pulls him to himself, and joins their mouths in a kiss.

Matt is much more tentative than Elio is used to, and gentler, more unsure. Elio takes the lead, as much as he can in his inebriated state, but he really wants to show Matt how he likes it, how he likes to be kissed. Matt does a thing that Oliver doesn’t do usually - he brushes his hair back behind his ears as they kiss. Elio finds it endearing. 

But he doesn’t run his fingers through Elio’s curls; he doesn’t seize strands between them and pull, in that way that Oliver has that should hurt, but doesn’t, and that drives Elio wild.

Matt doesn’t kiss his neck; Matt doesn’t push his pelvis against Elio in a promise of what’s to come.

The more Elio misses Oliver, the more he wants to keep kissing Matt.

Matt is a good guy. Matt would be good for him. Matt would treat him right. He would look after Elio. Matt would be safe.

“Can we go home? Maybe we can continue this there...” Elio murmurs to Matt, his forehead on Matt’s shoulder. Everything is spinning, but he feels good.

“Yeah, I think we should go home. But I will put you to bed,” Matt says. Elio hears, of at least he thinks he does; if Matt’s really said that, he can’t say he disagrees. He feels exhausted.

Bed. Sleep. That would be good.

 

 

 

 

 

When they get to their floor, Matt wraps an arm around Elio’s waist, guides him to their apartment.

“You’ll be fine tomorrow,” Matt murmurs to him. “This is like, a moderate hangover, at max. Trust me.”

He’s fishing for their keys in the pocket of his jacket, when something catches their eye. Someone, waiting by their door.

Oliver.

Elio closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, willing for his brain to scramble together and make sense. Get ready for this.

Oliver is looking at the both of them, frowning.

“Elio?”

“Yeah, hi, Oliver. This is my flat, by the way.” Elio doesn’t save on sarcasm. “What do you want?”

Has Oliver been waiting there? And how long for?

“I wanted to speak to you,” Oliver says. He’s still looking between Elio and Matt, a confused expression on his face.

“It’s late, and I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I’ll - I’ll go and open the door,” Matt says, quietly, a little awkwardly. Elio leans back against the wall. He feels more protected that way.

“And who is this?” Oliver asks.

“He’s my roommate. Not that it’s any of your business,” Elio bites back.

“Ah, of course.” Oliver has a weird smile on his face. “He’s your roommate, this is why he’s holding you and whispering in your ear while you walk back to the apartment late at night together?”

“I don’t think you have any right to say anything about that,” Elio says, without thinking. He’s surprised of himself. “I’m not the one with a wife.”

Matt clears his throat; his hand on the handle of the opened front door.

“Elio? Are you coming in?”

Elio gives one look to Oliver - he looks distraught. Good - and then he makes to follow Matt inside.

“Elio, wait,” Oliver holds his wrist before he can go in. “Wait. I need to talk to you. Please let me explain.”

“Oliver, let me go.” Elio is firm, though his head is spinning, and his heart is beating furiously.

“There’s some things you need to know. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You never fucking mean to hurt me. But you always do!”

Elio’s voice breaks at the last words. All his resolve seems to vanish, and he can’t find it anymore. It’s all gone.

“It’s all you do, I should have known not to - not to do this. I should have known it would have just got me more of - more of what you gave me two years ago!”

He’s annoyed at himself because, once again, he can’t string his words together as effectively as he wants. His eyes are full of tears, how embarrassing, so much for being cool and unaffected in front of Oliver. He’s just the stupid kid who, in a way or another, always ends up stripped naked in front of him.

“Elio. Let me explain. You know I love you. Please.”

Oliver is still holding onto his wrist, and Elio no longer struggles. He wants Oliver to let him go, but he craves his touch, he misses him, fuck, he wishes he’d never gotten married. He wishes for a different life, for the both of them.

He thinks he’s crying, he’s finally crying, because Matt takes one look at him, and then addresses Oliver with a stern expression on his face.

“Oliver. He said he doesn’t want to talk. I think you should go.” 

And Elio is grateful to him; grateful, and heartbroken at the same time. 

“Will you let me talk to you tomorrow?” Oliver’s voice is quiet, subdued, and he ignores Matt in favour of pleading to Elio with his eyes. “Elio?”

Elio shakes his head, but looks down, not finding the strength to meet Oliver’s gaze.

“Oliver. Please, just go.”

He looks up, only to see Oliver look at him, then at Matt; a sad expression on his face.

And then he lets go of Elio’s wrist, his thumb stroking Elio’s skin as he releases him.

Elio makes the decision for both of them, and goes inside the apartment, letting Matt close the door behind them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who are following this story!! All your comments make me SO. HAPPY. 
> 
> I am sorry I can’t respond regularly, but I read them ALL. Sometimes more than once. :) They inspire me to keep writing and to post often. So, THANK YOU!!
> 
> Keep letting me know what you think... xx


	17. Chapter 17

_You can break my heart in two,_

_but when it heals,_

_it beats for you._

_\- Back To You, Selena Gomez_

 

 

 

 

 

The morning after, when Elio wakes up, the apartment is quiet.

Matt was right. His hangover is not too cruel today, but it is there nonetheless, in the form of a dull headache and nausea that comes and goes. Elio forces himself to leave his bed and walk to the kitchen, to drink water, and to scout the fridge for anything to eat in the hope of settling his stomach.

Waking up brings back the memories. Elio squeezes his eyes tightly shut, as he remembers what happened the previous night.

His kiss with Matt. His fight with Oliver.

He was upset, crying, afterwards, and he just remembers Matt taking him to his bed, taking off his shoes. He would have tucked him in, probably, if Elio asked.

Matt left right after, and thankfully, sleep had come almost instantly, exhaustion winning over everything else in Elio’s body.

And today, the apartment is empty.

Elio swallows as he realises that, while he doesn’t have class today, Matt does; yet another thing he can feel guilty about.

He sighs. There’s a piece of paper on the breakfast table, and Elio picks it up, looks at it: it’s Ash’s scrambled handwriting, in a green pen, he says he’s gone home for the holidays.

Ah, yes. It’s almost the Christmas break.

Elio forces himself to drink a whole glass of water. His stomach rebels, but he closes his eyes again, fighting the nausea. He wishes he could forget last night. Or at least, the fight with Oliver.

It was awful. They’ve never fought like that before.

Elio bites his lip, and his eyes fall on Ash’s note again.

Why didn’t Oliver leave a note? Will he try to contact him today? Elio doesn’t know how he would respond - but he wants Oliver to try. He doesn’t want this to be the end; the mere thought makes him want to throw up.

He spends most of the day on the couch, watching tv, wrapped in an old quilt that he brought over from Italy. That Mafalda insisted he bring with him, even though Elio protested - but now he’s glad he did.

He listens for noises in the hallway outside their apartment. He listens for knocks. For the whisper of paper pushed under the door; but there’s nothing.

He’s half dozing off - he hates that; he hates sleeping after something bad happened. Sleeping makes him forget, and when he wakes up, the memories come to him anew, and they hurt all over again - when the door opens. Matt is back. 

Elio pulls himself up to sitting, rubs a hand over his eyes to wake up properly.

“How d’you feel?” Matt asks, looking at him. He drops his backpack to the floor.

“I’m okay,” Elio says. He runs a hand through his hair. He feels self conscious. “I bet I look like a crazy person.”

Matt smiles. 

“You look cute,” he says, simply, and then he goes to peer inside the fridge.

Elio bites his lower lip. He looks at the door, and frowns.He’s waited all day - for what, he doesn’t know. For a sign, from Oliver. For Oliver to leave him a letter, to apologise, to say that this time he left his wife for real.

Elio doesn’t even know what he was expecting.

This is stupid.

He gets up, and pads closer to Matt - he tries to tame his curls into looking a little tidier.

“Can we - can we go out? On Friday?”he asks. His voice is tentative.

“Sure. Any place in particular?” Matt is eating a carrot - probably the only carrot that exists in the house - while warming up a ready meal in the microwave. “I think there’s a student night in that place in TriBeCa that Ash was talking about.”

Elio bites his lip again. 

“No, I mean... I mean, can we go out? For dinner?”

That makes Matt turn around to look at him. A small smile on his face.

“For dinner? Us two?”

Elio smiles, too.

“Yeah.”

“Like... a date?”

Elio shrugs. Feels shy all of a sudden.

“Like a date.”

Matt looks at him for a long moment; until the microwave dings, and reminds them both that his food is ready. And then he shakes his head.

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t - it wouldn’t be what you’re used to,” he looks down, but the smile is still on his face. “Probably just pizza, or something.”

He’s being self-deprecatory. Elio leans against the counter, smiles back.

“How do you know what I’m used to?”

Matt sighs. Takes a moment to reply, and when he does, he reaches out to brush a curl behind Elio’s ear.

“Someone like you should be taken out properly.” He steps back, and then goes to take his food from the microwave. “But hey. I like a challenge.”

Still smiling, he walks back to the couch, leaving Elio to follow him with his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elio and Matt go out to a pizzeria downtown that Friday.

Elio tries not to think about Oliver. He hasn’t heard from him. He hasn’t seen him.

It’s probably for the best.

Every time he finds himself thinking about him, he remembers, he’s married. He’s married. He’s still married.

He just wants to enjoy his date with Matt; he’s angry at Oliver, for intruding, even though it’s just in his thoughts.

“This pizza wasn’t too bad,” Matt comments as they finish their meal, with a chuckle and a shy look on his face.

Elio rolls his eyes.

“Stop. I told you it would be fine. It was nice. For a New York pizza.”

“Uh-uh,” Matt sticks his chin out, his eyes twinkling. “Ready to go home?”

When they get back, there’s nobody downstairs by the entrance to the building. Nobody hanging out outside for a smoke.Lots of New Yorkers have already left for the holidays; Elio forces himself not to push his thoughts any further.

Matt doesn’t try to hold his hand as they walk, and that’s good. Because that’s where Elio and Oliver held hands, last time.

Matt kisses Elio when they’re upstairs in their apartment - sweet, soft; an end-of-date kiss. He fastens his hands together on the small of Elio’s back, and Elio lets himself wrap his arms around Matt’s neck, it feels young, innocent.

Matt is not going to ask him to have sex. Not tonight.

“I’m not gonna walk you back to your room,” Matt laughs quietly when they part.

“No. That would be cheesy,” Elio nods, his eyes amused. 

“You’re flying tomorrow, right?” Matt asks. He’s holding onto Elio’s waist, his thumb stroking circles on the fabric of his shirt.

Elio nods again.

“Yeah. I should probably pack.” 

Matt nods back, and then kisses him on the mouth one last time, briefly.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he says, and then goes to his room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I have a boyfriend,” is one of the first things Elio tells his father, when he gets back to Crema for the holidays. Samuel already knows Elio is doing well at school; this, somehow, feels more important for Elio to tell him.

“Do you? And who is the lucky gentleman?”

There’s a vein of teasing in his father’s voice, the same affectionate tone he’s always used with Elio - but while his voice sounds the same, his eyes betray him. They’re weird. A little sad.

“His name is Matt. He’s my roommate. He’s an art student.” 

Elio feels almost strange, giving all these details, but something inside compels him to do it; like a push to prove himself. Of what, he doesn’t know. 

“Seems nice.” Samuel looks at him still. “Come have some coffee with your mother and me? Tell us more about New York.” 

Elio’s never lied to his parents, but this time, he doesn’t want to talk about Oliver. He doesn’t mention him. And that’s not really lying, is it? Just omitting. And he hopes it’ll make him feel better; make Oliver less real.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Samuel knows better than to ask Elio if he wants to speak to Oliver, when Oliver calls on New Year’s Day.

“Wasn’t it nice that he called?” Samuel says, to both Elio and Annella.

Annella nods, takes a sip of the red wine she is having with lunch. “Very nice. He sounded a little... strange, though. A little sad.”

“He said he’s spending the holidays with his family in New England. Not with his wife,” Samuel tells her, but then sighs. “He said he was there since he left New York, while she’s with her family. But I didn’t ask any more. It’s not my place.”

Elio pretends to be interested in his slice of panettone; it’s the one with custard, which he usually loves. But now he’s distracted. Oliver. Oliver is not spending his vacation with his wife.

Elio bites the inside of his cheek when he catches himself wondering. Hoping.

“Oh,” Annella says. But nothing else. 

Elio can swear she’s looking at him from the corner of her eye; knowingly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you THANK YOU for all your comments!!! They are what keeps me going. Thank you! 
> 
> Someone asked how many chapters I am planning this story to be - at the moment, I am not so sure. It might be a while to go. I hope you don’t mind! 
> 
> The quote at the beginning is from Back to you by Selena Gomez. Seriously, listen to that song - it’s so Elio and Oliver. I’ve been listening to that song while writing this, as it fits quite well I think... 
> 
> Let me know what you think xx


	18. Chapter 18

It’s Matt’s twenty-first birthday, two days after Elio returns from his holidays in Italy.

Ash is not back in New York yet, and Matt has some friends over for a party. They bring drinks and food; the apartment is lively, and just the right level of noisy. Matt introduces Elio to everyone, his arm around Elio’s waist. 

Matt’s guests seem all very friendly. Elio lets them fuss and ask around him - what are you studying? What college? Oh wow, Juilliard? You will be famous! - watching everybody with interested eyes.

Most of them are gay. Some have brought their boyfriends. There’s someone sitting on the couch, another young man next to him, they’re holding hands; two more are kissing in the hallway.

Elio is quiet while Matt holds him and chitchats with someone whose name Elio has honestly forgotten.

Yes, Elio is lucky. His family has always been open, non-judgemental. He hasn’t grown up believing there’s only one way to be.

But apart from Isaac and Mounir, Elio hasn’t really seen men with other men, together, especially not so freely, kissing, hugging, touching and holding hands in front of other people. Only here, in New York, in the gay bar Matt took him to, and right now in their apartment - only now Elio’s experiencing it.

And even more than that, Elio has always had to be careful, hide, pretend, when he was with a man himself - when he was with Oliver. As much as nobody judged in his house in Crema, amongst his family, he and Oliver always had to fake a mere friendship, even while they slept in the same bed at night. They always had to kiss strictly in the privacy of a room, or hiding in shadows and in the night.

Matt’s friend is still talking, but Elio has stopped listening. He looks down at Matt’s arm, securely fastened around Elio’s waist with no uncertainty or fear, holding Elio against him.

“Now you don’t even need a fake id, Elio,” Matt’s friend says to him. “Since this one here’s twenty one and can get all the drinks for you.”

Elio smiles, and chuckles politely. He looks at Matt’s friend, at the way he’s so freely accepting of him being Matt’s boyfriend. At the way everyone in that apartment is right now. No need to hide, no need for alibis, no need for fake girlfriends - no need for wives.

“You all right?” Matt asks him softly, stroking his fingers over Elio’s side.

Elio nods.

“Yeah. I just think - I’m going to go have a cigarette. Be back in a minute.”

Matt’s eyes observe him for a moment but then he smiles, says ‘sure’. Elio is grateful that Matt always understand when Elio doesn’t need company.

It is absolutely freezing outside, a typical New York January, and Elio shivers as he pulls out his cigarette. As much as it’s cold and his breath comes out in puffs, he’s relishing the fresh air on his face. He needs it.

He looks around himself. It would be weird for someone else to be outside too, aside from the odd person walking by. It’s too cold.But Elio stands by the entrance, waiting - he doesn’t even know what for.

Or maybe he does.

What if Oliver were to step out now, too, for a cigarette, for a walk, for anything. What if he were to return now from work, from a trip. From New England.

He could not be alone, but Elio quickly forces himself to forget that image - long brown hair, a dress, a smile on lips that wear red lipstick. Elio wonders if she wears it for Oliver; Oliver loves how red Elio’s lips always are.

Elio finishes his cigarette, but still can’t bear to go back inside. He wants to wait - just a little longer, just a few more minutes.It’s a long shot, but who knows.

He just wants to see if Oliver’s okay.

But then Oliver hasn’t tried to get in touch with him since that day, since their fight. Almost a full month ago, now.He hasn’t tried, not even once. Elio’s missed him terribly, but Oliver probably hasn’t. He hasn’t tried to call, he hasn’t tried to leave a note for him, he hasn’t asked for him on the phone to Samuel.

Elio bites his lip, and frowns.

He wishes he still had a cigarette to smoke but he’s only brought down one, and he’s starting to seriously shiver from the cold anyway. There’s still nobody outside. ‘You’re acting like a fool’, his mind helpfully supplies.

Why would Oliver come outside now? He might not even be in New York. And anyway, he doesn’t seem to care.

Elio bites his lip. He thinks of Matt, and the party back upstairs, his friends. He thinks of Matt holding him in front of them and nobody finding it weird, nobody there they need to hide from. Nobody they need to give excuses to. He thinks of Matt, so open and honest with his gestures and his attentions towards Elio.

He goes back upstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He hugs Matt back in the kitchen, wrapping his arms around his neck, smiling at him, really close to his face.

He feels a frenzy inside his body; when Matt giggles, ‘Whoa, you’re like an icicle’, and pulls him closer to himself to share some body heat, Elio kisses him urgently on the mouth.

Matt takes the lead and Elio relishes that. He lets himself be guided into a deeper kiss, moans softly in his mouth. Matt’s hands are resting on the small of Elio’s back, and Elio wishes they’d slide lower.

“I want you,” Elio says on Matt’s lips. Every part of his body is screaming, different feelings and voices.

Elio doesn’t want to listen too closely.

Matt looks at him for a moment, and then smiles, slowly; radiant. Like he’s won a prize - and it makes Elio feel like one.

“Are you sure?” Matt asks, his eyes searching Elio’s.

“Yeah,” Elio whispers, and kisses him again, before Matt can see too many things inside him.

 

 

 

 

 

The party is still going on but Matt and Elio go to Matt’s room, still kissing, and this time Elio is leading them. He’s urgent and demanding, moaning against Matt’s mouth, an encouragement for each time Matt’s hands stroke, touch, undress him. 

It’s weird to be naked with someone else, someone who isn’t Oliver, but Elio quickly pushes the thought aside and concentrates on the physical sensation of hands touching, exploring, wanting his body. Matt is sweet and reverent, just like always, and hesitates, but Elio asks for it and moans when the other boy’s fingers are finally inside him.

He missed this. Matt’s fingers are thinner, they don’t give Elio that delicious pleasure-pain when they’re inside him as Oliver’s do; but Elio craves it all the same, and nearly comes just from that sensation.

“Please fuck me,” Elio asks.

He keeps his eyes closed. He cries out. Nods when Matt asks him if he’s okay; still keeps his eyes closed when he comes, and Matt breathes and moans too, and then kisses him for ages afterwards, deep, and loving.

They go back to the party afterwards, Matt holding his hand, interlinking their fingers and Elio lets him, follows him as he chats to different people.

The party ends not long after, and they go to bed, together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning, Elio wakes up first.

Matt is still kind of dozing, his face hidden against the pillow, but wakes a few minutes later, and smiles at him.

Elio has never woken up in bed with anyone other than Oliver, before.

“Morning,” Matt says, and brushes Elio’s curls off his forehead. He sighs. “I really liked it. Last night.”

Elio takes a breath. “Me, too.”

“And, you know,” Matt says, his expression mischievous, and then winks: “happy birthday to me!”

“Oh my god,” Elio covers his eyes with the back of his hand, laughs sheepishly. “Oh my god, Matt. I didn’t - it wasn’t like that.”

Matt just laughs, and then kisses his cheek, and gets up to go to the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

Matt is making them breakfast - bowls of milk and Frosties, and orange juice - and Elio gets dressed and heads for the kitchen too to make some coffe, when his eyes fall to something under the front door.

It’s a white envelope, and Elio’s heart jumps in his throat, he can almost physically feel it there, beating. Elio tells himself to calm down because it could be anything - but the truth is that he already knows what he’ll see when he turns the envelope around.

His name, in Oliver’s handwriting, and a note from Oliver inside it.

Elio looks towards the kitchen, then clutches the letter in his fist, and goes to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that chapters often end in mini-cliffhangers - but I do try to update as often as I can, so I hope I’ll be forgiven! :) 
> 
> Again thank you SO MUCH for all your comments. I’m so happy you are engaging with this story. I’m so happy you like Matt! 
> 
> Do keep commenting. You inspire me. Xx


	19. Chapter 19

Elio holds the letter in his hands for the longest of times. Sitting on the edge of his bed, the paper pushed to his lips, staring ahead, at nothing, thinking. 

Old Elio would have already opened it. Torn the envelope at the corners in an hurry with no regards to anything, except to the words written on the note inside.

He doesn’t want to be the old Elio.He doesn’t want to jump, every time Oliver asks him to, no matter how much his body, his mind, and his heart scream for it.

What could be in that letter? What could Oliver be wanting to tell him?

Probably more smoke in Elio’s eyes. More requests to please, wait. More excuses, more words that don’t really mean anything.

Elio’s heart beats just as fast as it did every time he’s received a note from Oliver, just as fast as it did when he received his very first note, that ‘grow up, see you at midnight’ that started everything; but this time, it beats fast, also because Elio’s not doing anything.

He’s holding the letter in his hands, biting his lower lip until it hurts; and the pain brings him back to the moment.

He stands up. He looks at the books on his bed; he hides the letter under the pile. And then he turns around, and leaves his room, goes back to Matt and to their breakfast.

Not now, Oliver. Not now.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m going to have to study all day,” Elio tells Matt, as he drinks the coffee that he’s just made.

“At least you can stay home. I’ll have to go out in the North Pole out there,” Matt huffs, but it’s playful. He’s dressed up - boots, parka, scarf and hat, like he’s expecting a snowstorm. “I wish I had skis, I could ski all the way to class. The road is all iced.”

He leaves, with a kiss to Elio’s mouth, and a reminder that he’ll be late, and that maybe Ash is back today, he doesn’t know.

And then Elio’s alone.

 

 

 

 

He does try to study for a couple of hours, and he manages to, at least for a while, at least until his thoughts start to wander again and he knows it’s time for a break.

He makes another coffee and eats an apple. He isn’t totally sure that being alone in the house is very helpful for him right now.

He looks towards his room, and frowns.

The letter hidden there is like some sort of task he hasn’t got to yet, something he knows he’ll need to do, something he’s hiding from - against his will, really.

He’s hiding because he’s tired of falling for Oliver. For him, for his words, for his touch. 

And yet, he can’t get him out of his mind.

By five in the evening, Elio decides, he’s waited enough. He’s made Oliver wait - even though he’s not there.

He takes a breath and goes to his room, lifts up his book, grabs the letter. He opens it, telling himself - it’s just out of curiosity. Oliver is probably just telling him something trivial, something Elio can ignore and move on.

Well, no. He’s not.

It’s a full page, a full page of Oliver’s handwriting, a blue pen that’s darker and lighter at times.

Elio runs a hand through his curls, and sits on his bed, as he reads it.

 

_Elio,_

_I don’t even know how to start this letter, but it was the only way I could think of that could, maybe, allow me to get in touch with you again._

_I could have called you, but perhaps - or almost certainly - you would have refused to speak to me; and I can’t blame you._

_The only way for me is to write you a letter, so I can put my words in front of your eyes, to beg, yet again, for the last time, for your forgiveness._

_If you feel like crumbling this piece of paper now, and throwing it away, I understand, but please don’t. Please, Elio._

_Please keep reading, if you can, and if at the end you want to destroy this note then, please do._

_I have been in love with you since I saw you, the day of my arrival, in Italy. I have been in love with you, and I didn’t know it at the time, but you helped me. You made me realize what I was feeling. You gave me all of yourself. You made me happy._

_When I left, I thought I was never going to see you again. And I didn’t want to keep you chained to me. I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to move on, grow into the wonderful, talented person that you are, that you will become - just like you’re doing. I wanted you to follow your path._

_Just like you, I thought I had a path to follow. And I did. I thought I could be happy - and for a little while, in the smallest part of my soul, perhaps I was._

_But then I saw you again. And it happened all over again: you made me realize what a lie I was living. You made me realize I’m not happy._

_Not just that: you made me see how weak I’ve been. How I just accepted the circumstances, how I bowed down to my fears, how I ran from risks. How I didn’t take charge of my own life._

_And on top of that, I was weak because I wanted to shelter you from all of this. From the way I have to live my life, from the way that what I am is seen, and judged, in my world._

_I didn’t want you to have to go through it._

_Yes. I was weak. Cowardly. Unfair._

_Elio, I had to get married, for my father’s and my own peace of mind. Because I wanted to avoid a storm. Because I thought I could be happy._

_And then I had to tell Jennifer that I wasn’t happy - but I couldn’t tell her why. I was still cowardly and weak, and scared - for you, for me._

_I told her I wasn’t happy, but when she saw that there wasn’t another woman, that my needs were all met, she thought it could be fixed._

_And I couldn’t tell her why it can’t._

_She’s with her family now because I told her we can’t do this anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but what I am sure of is just that - I can’t do this anymore._

_It’s been broken, with her, for such a long time; it never, even, existed._

_I know it’s hard for you to believe me, after everything, I know I’m not worthy of trust in your eyes. I know I need to be forgiven by you, and I know that I might not be._

_But I can’t lie anymore._

_I am sorry, Elio._

_I love you. Very much._

_Oliver_

 

 

 

By the time Elio’s finished reading the letter, he has to blink, to clear his eyes. Hishands tremble, the adrenaline and anticipation mixed with what he feels right now causing them to shake, as he still clutches the piece of paper in his fingers.

He doesn’t know what he feels.

And then, suddenly, he does.

He pulls on a sweater and his shoes, and runs to the elevator, impatiently waiting for it to go all the way down to the ground floor, and then he runs again to the porter.

He’s never asked him this but he needs to now, and the man looks at him, surprised, but he knows Elio, he knows Oliver, and so he tells him. Oliver lives in apartment number 84.

By the time Elio gets to the eight floor his heart wants to jump in his throat again, but he knows that he has to do this. If Oliver isn’t home, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. If he’ll have this courage again, for another time.

“Elio?” Oliver looks shocked.

He sees Elio’s distressed expression clearly because he moves to the side, lets Elio in, closes the door after him.

“What does this letter mean?” Elio asks, the paper clutched in his fingers, his face hard. His voice wants to tremble, but he doesn’t let it. Not now. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“I don’t understand.” Oliver looks confused.

“Why did you write this to me? What’s the point?”

“I wanted to explain. I wanted to talk to you.”

Elio tries to control his breathing, but doesn’t think he can.

“So you tell me that you’ve been - that you’re in love with me, that you had to get married, that you can’t keep doing it, and - and then? What does that mean? What are you going to do?”

“Elio...”

The boy interrupts him.

“No. Don’t give me that. I want an answer. Do you even have a plan?”

Oliver sighs.

“I didn’t even know if you wanted to see me ever again.”

“Surely that shouldn’t affect your decision, should it? Or are you just saying it - to convince me, again?”

“No. No, Elio. I promise to you.”

Suddenly, Elio feels deflated. All the fight leaving his body. He’s tired.

He can just look at Oliver; his handsome, intelligent, perfect Oliver, the man he fell in love with; the man who can’t seem to understand what he’s doing to Elio.

“Then what are you going to do? Huh?” Elio’s eyes are sad. “You tell me you love me, you tell me you can’t live your life like this. But then, what? You didn’t even tell me where to find you. You haven’t given me your number. You keep - holding me at a distance.”

“I don’t want to.” Oliver takes a step towards him. “Elio, Baby. I don’t want to. Please.”

“Then why? Why are you doing it? What are you going to do to - have this? To have me?”

Elio can’t even believe his own ears, hearing his own words. He’s terrified, and yet, decisive. Firm.

He’s fought for Oliver. He’s made mistakes, he’s tried to learn, he’s tried to make it better. He’s tried to do his best.

He’s loved Oliver, more than anything he’s ever loved, ever, in his life.

Why can’t Oliver do the same?

“I’ll do whatever you want me to,” Oliver says. He steps forward again; reaches out with a hand. “Elio. I’ll do anything. I will.” His fingers caress Elio’s cheek; his thumb strokes Elio’s lower lip.

For a moment, Elio is still. His jaw is set, face rigid, in distress.

And then he closes his eyes, and takes a step back.

He’s quiet, when he speaks.

“No. I have someone, now. I have a boyfriend.” He takes a breath. “It’s not enough, Oliver. What you’re doing. I feel - I feel like I’m doing this alone.”

He watches, as Oliver’s blue eyes cloud over; although he doesn’t move, he stays still. Staring at him.

Elio’s heart breaks; he never wanted to hurt Oliver.

This is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

Oliver’s eyes are still dark.

“You’re not. You’re not alone.”

“Then show me,” Elio says. “Then show me.”

 

 

 

 

A moment later, when Elio leaves, he feels like he’s fought a battle.

He doesn’t know what’s going on in his head. He doesn’t know what’s right, or what’s wrong.

Matt is back when Elio lets himself into the apartment, and Elio walks over to him, but doesn’t meet his eyes.

“You went out?” Matt asks. Elio lets him wrap his arm around him, lets him kiss his cheek.

“Just wanted to have a cigarette outside.”

Matt just nods slowly; but doesn’t say anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Sorry for even more angst... thanks again for reading and commenting. Love you xx


	20. Chapter 20

They’re in the kitchen. Elio and Matt. In the middle of a slow, long kissing session, Elio’s back leaning against the edge of the breakfast table, Matt’s hands on his waist;when Matt ends the kiss, pecks Elio’s mouth once, before speaking.

“You okay?” His voice is low. Gentle. “You seem distracted.”

Elio’s heart squeezes a bit. He knows it’s true. He was mostly following Matt’s lead, letting himself be kissed, passively.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking Matt in the eyes, his cheeks warm. He doesn’t try to say anything more.

Matt looks at him, at his eyes, and then his lips stretch into a small smile. He reaches out to kiss Elio on the mouth again, light, although Elio responds actively, to show him that he’s listened to his gentle reprimand just now.

Matt kisses his nose, and then lets him go, and goes to pick up his school bag from where he’s thrown it on the couch earlier.

“I wanted to say - you’ve seen Ash is back.” He goes to grab his coat, but then stops, and looks at Elio. “I want to tell him. About - me. I don’t care what he thinks, honestly, I just want to not have to stress about it. This is my apartment, too.” He sighs. “I guess, I guess if he really has a problem with it, he can, I don’t know. Leave. But I don’t think he’s like that.”

Coat and scarf on, Matt walks over to Elio, who is still standing by the kitchen table. His fingers holding onto the edge.

“I wanted to ask you...are you okay if I tell him - about us? Too?” Matt’s voice is so, so tentative. He’s almost whispering. “I’m not going to say anything if you don’t want me to, of course. But, if you’re okay with it, I think it would make things much easier.”

Elio blinks, and feels his heart beat a little faster. He, honestly, hadn’t considered this at all; the perks - and perils - of his privileged upbringing. Matt’s been so carefree so far that Elio’s almost forgotten so many people don’t take well to relationships between two men, in the real world.

“No, no, it’s fine,” he says, and has to clear his throat when his voice comes out a little croaky. “You can tell him.”

Matt’s smile grows, and his eyes gleam.

“Great. Cool. I’ll speak to him tonight, then.”

 

 

 

 

Elio goes to class, picks up books at the library, some food from the shop - bread and eggs and milk, a bag of chips - and goes home later that day.

He locks himself in his room to revise for the test he has in three days. He naps for a while after that; he slept very little the night before.

Oliver was in his mind. And he’s angry about that.

He’s angry about so many things.

About Oliver leaving him that letter. About him, dropping that letter back in Oliver’s apartment - now he doesn’t have it anymore, he wishes he did. Maybe he would reread it. Of course he would - about him going to yell at Oliver like that. Like he’s never done before.

He needed it, he needed to say it, but he broke his own heart while doing it, and he can feel it now, so clearly.

Oliver seemed so shocked. He could hardly speak. He wasn’t expecting it.

Elio knows it was needed, but - what if. What if that’s - the end? What if Oliver never tries to contact him again?

In his haste, he told Oliver he has a boyfriend. He can’t fathom what Oliver may think about that right now, but - what if he thinks all is lost? That Elio’s moved on, that there’s no hope left?

Is that what Elio wants?

And then he squeezes his eyes shut at his own thoughts.

Fuck. He’s with Matt now; but here he is, hoping that he hasn’t lost all his chances to get together with another man.

It’s all so fucked up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Well, no, no, I would have never thought. No, no way,” Ash says that night, sat on the couch, a beer in his hand. His eyes are still wide from when Matt told him everything. That he’s gay, and that he and Elio are dating.

“I mean, especially Elio. I thought you chased after the ladies, dude.”

“Not sure what that even means,” Matt retorts, but he looks amused. “But we don’t care. At least now you know.”

“But. Like... Sorry this is gonna sound dumb, but you don’t seem gay. Neither of you.”

“Again. I’m not sure what ‘seem gay’ means.” Matt’s voice is calm, level. He’s not being reproachful.

Elio is glad Matt is leading this conversation, because he feels so wholly unprepared. He feels like a spectator himself, as if this doesn’t apply to him. He takes a sip from his glass of water, and watches his roommates from the kitchen. He never thought this conversation could unnerve him so much.

“I don’t know. Like, that character in Soap? What’s his name... Joe? Jodie!” Ash drinks from his beer again. Elio has never even heard of that show. “But I guess he sleeps with women too.”

Matt kind of sighs, but it’s still more amused than anything.

“We just wanted to tell you, so you know. We don’t need to have a - debate about it,” he says, and his voice is firm.

“Hey, it’s cool. It’s cool. Just sad we can’t go on the prowl together,” Ash concludes. “Eh. More girls for me!”

He stands up, and pats Matt on the shoulder; finishes his beer, and then announces he’s going out again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“He’s a goon,” Matt comments, once Ash is gone.

Elio realises he’s still standing in the kitchen; kind of dumbfounded. Matt seems so apt at dealing with these conversations. Elio’s never, ever had to.

He feels like such an outsider.

He has so much to learn.

“I - I don’t know how you do it,” he finally says. “How you - talk to people. About... yourself. You’re brave.”

Sat on the couch, Matt scratches his head, and sighs.

“I’m used to it now. But still haven’t had the courage to tell my parents. So, I’m not that brave.”

Elio bites the inside of his lip.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. At least they’re not the type that would send me to conversion therapy. Or kick me out of the family. Or, worse.” Matt shrugs. “I heard of folks being blackmailed by their families, that have to get married so they don’t have their whole life destroyed, I mean... it could be much, much worse.”

Matt seems to realise what he’s said the moment he’s said it - but of course, it’s already too late. He looks at Elio, eyes alarmed, suddenly worried. He looks like he wants to say something, but he just sucks in a breath, stares at Elio.

He described Oliver; so well. So accurately.

Elio looks down. He can feel his eyes cloud over, the tears wanting to push out as a consequence of the stab he’s felt in his heart.

He feels disgusting. Like he’s hurting everyone. Matt, Oliver. Himself.

Oliver was trying to tell him something. He was trying to tell him that his life was going to be destroyed if he didn’t handle this carefully. He was trying to tell him he needed time to do that.

It’s true, he needed to fight for Elio; but Elio had no idea of the mountain Oliver needed to climb to do so.

Elio hasn’t listened to him. Hasn’t let him speak.

And now he’s hurting Matt, too.

“Hey. I’m sorry,” Matt murmurs, and Elio blinks, looks at him. Matt walks over to him slowly, and takes him into his arms. “I’m sorry.”

Elio hugs him back, leans his cheek against Matt’s shoulder.

“I - I’m going to bed. I’m so tired,” Elio tells him after a moment. He does feel like he needs some space to think.

Matt nods, and kisses his temple. Watches his back as Elio walks to his room, and closes the door behind himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes about this chapter: 
> 
> \- I’m sorry this is another one where Oliver only gets mentioned. It was necessary for the plot, however. He’ll be back in the next chapters, of course. 
> 
> \- I wasn’t alive/old enough in the 80s to know what the gay situation was, especially in the US, so I am reading up a lot about it to try and write the historical context somewhat realistically. It’s interesting to me that Elio grew up in a very free, very nurturing environment, but one which would have provided him with very little tools to deal with homophobia in the real world (as opposed to what Elio feels inside). It was interesting to me to show this in this story, as it’s definitely something that forces him to grow as a person. 
> 
> \- thank you again for all your comments and love for this story. I’m honoured that you are engaging with it so much and are supporting different perspectives - Matt, Oliver, Elio... thank you. Please keep letting me know what you think xx


	21. Chapter 21

Two more days go by. Two more days in which Elio tries his best to carry on as normal - school, studying, spending time with Matt - but can’t get what happened out of his mind. Telling Ash, the conversation with Matt. Oliver writing to him.

Finally, one evening, with his heart in his throat, Elio leaves the apartment. He goes to Oliver’s floor. He can feel the thump of his heartbeats as he walks; so much of what he’s doing right now is terrifying.

Oliver might not be alone. Oliver might be mad at him. Oliver might not want to see him.

Matt doesn’t know that Elio’s going to see Oliver.

Despite all this, Elio feels a pull inside him, something that tells him he needs to do this, and so he keeps walking, until he gets to Oliver’s door, and knocks.Oliver might not even be home.

And yet, the sound of the door opening is more unsettling to him than the very thought of having come here to find the apartment empty.

Oliver is there. Wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. His blond hair mussed; as if he hasn’t been out all day.

He still looks gorgeous in Elio’s eyes.

“Elio?” Oliver’s voice is a breath.

“I - understand if you don’t want to see me. But - “ Elio takes a step back, unconsciously, berates himself for doing that. Tells himself to keep it together, “I have some things I want to ask you.”

Oliver’s lips stretch into a small, sad smile; he steps to the side, lets Elio in.

The house is messy, but lived in.Elio thinks this is exactly how he imagined Oliver to live: books and paper everywhere, scattered on the kitchen table and the desk in the living room, used mugs next to them. Elio thinks if it’s messy, then maybe Jennifer hasn’t come back yet. For some reason he can’t see her being happy with a less than tidy apartment.

“I - “ Elio starts. He should have really thought this through; rehearsed what he wants to say. When he’s got Oliver in front of him, words and thoughts seem to fail him.

“Does your father know. About us.”

And yet, he’s surprised himself.

This is the thing that ran wild in his mind ever since his conversation with Matt. He just didn’t even realise - he hadn’t put it together. But it was there, agonisingly heavy, in his mind.

Oliver sighs, and lowers his gaze. He sits down on the couch, and runs a hand through his hair.

“It’s best if we don’t -“ he starts, but Elio sits in front of him, looks at him urgently.

“No, no. Please. Please, Oliver. I want to know.”

Oliver looks at him, and then sighs again.

“When we - when we went to Bergamo. We met that professor - and some of his colleagues, some people I knew.Remember that man from Portland?”

Elio nods. Oliver continues.

“He knew my father - at the time, I didn’t realise. But he told him he met me. And who I was with, and what - what he thought was happening.”

“But -“ Elio babbles, speechless. “We didn’t - we didn’t do anything, in - in front of them...”

Oliver looks at him, eyes round, a dark blue.

“There were - rumours. You don’t have to do anything - overt, for them to travel. For people to talk.”

Elio swallows.

Yet another reminder that he knows so little. That this is a situation, an occurrence, a terrible nightmare that people face, but one he’s been sheltered from, until now.

He doesn’t know what to say. He knows there’s things he should tell Oliver, he knows there’s still so many wrongs that need to be made right in the whole situation - but his thoughts are all jumbled, and he doesn’t seem to be able to put them together properly.

“What did your father say?” he asks, then. Breathless.

Oliver frowns, and his jaw sets. Elio knows that expression; it’s when there’s something Oliver doesn’t want him to know.

“Please,” he begs.

He just needs to know everything.

“At first, when I... when I called you, to say I was getting married. I honestly did think that was what I should do. I convinced myself it was for the best.” Oliver sighs again. “But after - after hearing your voice. I - tried to pull out of it. I tried to cancel everything.”

“My father stepped in. He told me he’d heard of my behavior in Italy. He said I’d better get my shit together and marry Jennifer, that I’d been gallivanting around Europe for long enough, that my life choices were shameful. That I was an embarrassment to the family.” Oliver’s face is rigid. “But I didn’t care about that. So he - “ and here Oliver hesitates. His expressions hardens even more. “He said he’d - go after you. He said he’d track down this boy who perverted me, and would make his life impossible, ruin his future.”

Elio’s lips tremble. He’s shocked.

He would have never, ever thought.

“I couldn’t let that happen, Elio. I knew you had plans of coming to study in America, maybe, and I - couldn’t let him do this to you. My father is a very vindictive person.” Oliver’s talking so matter of factly; like he’s accepted this whole fucked up situation, long ago. “And I thought I would never see you again. I thought this was for the best - the best solution for everyone.”

Elio swallows.

“It wasn’t.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Oliver says, still frowning. “But I thought it would at least help you.” Another sigh. “Until we- until we met again, and I was a fool. Because I couldn’t keep away from you.”

Elio feels like he can’t breathe.

Oliver’s father knowing about Oliver. About them. Oliver’s father threatening his son, threatening him. But most of all - Oliver sacrificing himself, his happiness, for Elio.

Who would have ever thought.

He feels dizzy. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Elio, I - I never - I didn’t lie when I said I love you. I do. But, I don’t - I don’t want your future to be destroyed because of me.” Oliver’s eyes are so, eerily calm; determined. “It’s killing me to think of you with someone else. It’s killing me to think I’ve lost you. But more than anything I want you to be happy.”

The words echo in Elio’s brain, while he tries to find air to breathe. His heart is beating too fast, and he wills it to slow down.

“I never - I never thought...”

“I know,” Oliver says. “It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have to - face this, anyway. It’s why I tried to shelter you from all of it.”

Elio wants to reach out. Touch Oliver’s hand. Make sure he’s okay. A huge, sweeping instinct to help, to protect him, to shield him at least a little from this whole mess is taking over his body, but he knows he can’t - he can’t do anything. Not right now.

He’s too shocked to think of anything coherently.

“I still want to fight for you. But I’ll do - anything I can, to make sure none of this, none of this evil touches you,” Oliver says. His voice firm.

He reaches out; his large, beautiful hand raises towards Elio’s face. His fingers caress Elio’s cheekbone, light, briefly.

Elio closes his eyes for a moment.

He thought Oliver wanted to have both. Both him and Jennifer. He thought he just wanted the easy way out, his wife and his lover on the side. He thought Oliver had everything figured out. He thought he wasn’t ruled by feelings, like Elio is.

And this whole time Oliver had been dealing with that dilemma, the wanting to be near Elio but wanting to protect him from the consequences.

Oliver has made mistakes, but Elio’s been a fool, too.

“Are you alone?” Elio finds himself asking. Whispering, weak as ever.

Oliver nods.

“Jennifer’s left. She said she couldn’t deal with my indecision anymore. That if I wanted a divorce, then she would give me one.” His thumb still strokes Elio’s cheek, slowly. “She’s a clever woman.”

Elio opens his eyes. Blinks, as he looks at Oliver.

He’s floored. Speechless. Overwhelmed.

He feels like he needs to go away, lick his wounds. Think of everything. Try and make sense of what he knows, of what happened. Of what’s going to come.

“I - have to go. Oliver,” Elio murmurs. Reluctantly. “I have to.”

He has to stop himself from doing something he shouldn’t be doing.

Oliver nods.

“I know.”

There’s so much, in those two little words, that make Elio believe Oliver knows what’s going on inside him.

Elio stands. Bites his lip. Holds Oliver’s gaze for a little longer.

Then he forces himself to leave.


	22. Chapter 22

In bed, a few nights later, Elio thinks.

He doesn’t know how to feel, about this whole situation. If he should feel scared; worried; happy; hopeful; heartbroken.

It’s like a harsh awakening. He’s never had to deal with so many emotions, all at the same time, all conflicting - and he thought that being so much in his own head, with just a piano and music as his outlet, for most of his life had already brought him enough questioning, enough confusion.

It feels so easy now, if he thinks back to it, to Crema, to his parents. To his little room in Italy.

If not easy, at least - manageable. Normal.

Nothing like the huge mountain he feels he has in front of himself, there, for him to climb, there ready to crumble under him should he put one foot wrong.

Beside him on the bed, Matt sleeps quietly; an arm around Elio’s naked waist.

Elio wonders what Matt thinks, what he knows. Elio knows Matt doesn’t deserve any of this. To be in the middle of this storm.

But it’s thanks to Matt that Elio hasn’t collapsed yet. As much as a new relationship has added pressure to a situation that’s like a ticking bomb, ready to go off at any time, Matt’s been a rock. A source of affection, comfort. Warmth.

A pair of arms that were always open to Elio, a young but solid chest he could squeeze himself against when everything got too much.

Elio looks at Matt’s sleeping face, his eyelashes. The way he breathes, quietly, slowly.

Elio sighs.

There’s a small, twitching part of his heart that was really starting to fall for Matt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s reading week soon and Elio takes a few days off before that, and flies back to Italy.

He needs it.

He needs to find his feet again. He needs his parents. To check in, to see what’s real and what’s not. To figure out what to do. He needs familiarity.

Mafalda fusses over him again, just like she did when he came back for the winter break - he needs to eat more.

Elio hugs his mother, lets her hold him and kiss him, gratefully. She never asks any questions, but it’s like she always knows what he needs.

Then one day, he talks to his father. Catches Samuel in his study; tries not to think of Oliver, in that very same room, and that summer, the warm air, the apricot juice.

“Is everything okay?” his father’s gentle voice reaches him before he can even start speaking.

Elio isn’t really sure where to start. But once he does, he tells him everything. Him, and Oliver, in the same building in New York. Him and Oliver seeing each other even though Oliver is married.

Their struggles. The fights. Him, and Matt.

Oliver telling him about his father.

By the end he’s exhausted, but his father’s only looking at him, serious, no shocked expression in his face. He always seems to have such a firm grip on life; Elio hopes he can be like him one day.

“Elio, life will always be complicated. It will throw hurdles at us, and sometimes - sometimes we feel like we can’t overcome them. But I - what I want, for you, is to feel free. Free to think, free to say and to do what you feel.” He looks at Elio for a moment, then continues. “People like Oliver’s father will always try to limit the freedom of others - because that’s what happened to them. But don’t fear them. In the end, fear is the only thing they can cause you.”

Elio looks back at his father.

“What would you do?”

“Ah,” Samuel smiles. “But you shouldn’t do what I did. I have been worried way too many times in my life about consequences- and most of the time, none of them came true. None of them were even a possibility. You just - ask yourself what’s good for you. What do you want. And then ask yourself what others could do to stop you. You’ll find that - when there’s freedom, there isn’t much someone else could do.”

There’s a moment, and then Samuel speaks again.

“But even in the worst case scenario... the one which would require every circumstance in the world to align in an evil way... even then, you have freedom. Because you have us, behind you. Always.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oliver comes calling one day, soon after Elio got back from Italy. It’s just Ash and Elio at home, which is probably for the best. Ash comes to him, as Elio sits on the couch, a book in his hands, and tells him ‘someone called Oliver is at the door.’

His expression is confused; and Elio tries his best to appear calm, like he’s got everything under control, like everything’s normal. But he knows even Ash can tell that Oliver is not just a friend.

Elio accepts gratefully when Oliver proposes a walk. He mentions the cafe they went to, once, when they started seeing each other again. It feels like so long ago, now.

“Did you go away?” Oliver asks, when they’re sitting with their cups of coffee. It’s mid-morning, and the cafe is quiet.

“Went to see my parents.”

Elio doesn’t add anything more. He looks down into his cup, which is warming his hands as he holds it between his palms.

Oliver nods.

“Elio, I don’t - I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t have done any of this, to begin with. But - I miss you. Every time I’m not with you, I miss you.”

Elio looks at him. Oliver sounds so tentative. Almost like a scared child.

“I miss you, too,” Elio says.

It’s sincere. And when Oliver smiles, Elio is pleased.

“We’ve tried this before, we’ve talked about this, we can’t be friends but - can we be, still - in each other’s lives?” Oliver says, surprising Elio, for how direct he’s being. Vulnerable.

Elio smiles again, a little sadly.

“How?” he asks. Like he did that day, on the phone. When he was asking, how? How do you know that my parents know about us?

“I don’t know. Somehow?” Oliver replies. His voice low, almost a whisper. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

And it reminds Elio of a few months ago, when the situation was reversed, when Oliver had someone, and it was Elio asking for scraps.

Elio doesn’t want Oliver to ask for scraps.

“Maybe we were just hurting each other. Before,” he tries, his voice low.

He reaches out with his hand. Strokes Oliver’s cheek, slowly, with the back of his fingers, a little bit like Oliver did to him last time they spoke.

“I just want you to be okay,” he murmurs.

His father’s words are still sounding clear in his mind. He told him he can make his own decisions. That he’ll be all right. Something that Oliver has never been told.

And it’s because of this that Elio needs to be careful. Thread the waters. Make the right decisions.

He’s made way too many mistakes already. They both have.

Oliver lets Elio’s fingers skim his lips, and then nuzzles them gently with his nose. Until Elio’s hand strokes his hair; once, and then he pulls it back.

He feels strong. He feels like he knows the situation, now. He feels like he can take responsibility. He’s got a back-up, and he can help Oliver, too. He was weak before; Oliver is the weak one, now.

He can help him.

Perhaps if they put their feelings aside for now, perhaps if they try; perhaps if he uses what he feels to be there for Oliver. Perhaps they can both heal.

Elio needs to at least give it a shot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is still a slow burn... sorry! But it means it’s not over yet! 
> 
> Ps I purposely haven’t described Matt to give the reader the freedom to imagine as they want. How do you imagine him - if you have thought about it?
> 
> Hope you like this chapter too... eek! Xx


	23. Chapter 23

“I love Central Park,” Elio says, smiling from behind the hot chocolate he’s holding into his gloved hands, up to his mouth.

It’s a cold, but sunny morning. He doesn’t have class until that afternoon; Oliver had a meeting with his lawyer earlier, nearby, and so they decided to meet for a walk.

“Even when it’s so freezing?” Oliver shoots back, a smile on his face. He’s got his hands deep into the pockets of his heavy winter coat.

Elio smirks.

“Didn’t know you were so adverse to the cold. Are you sure you’re not the one from Italy, instead of me?” he jokes, and giggles when Oliver playfully bumps him with his shoulder.

It’s been a couple of weeks, and they’ve met a few times, during the day. Just to spend some time together. It feels like the beginning, right after they met again in New York, and started hanging out, before everything else happened.

Oliver has talked to him openly about his divorce - and Elio appreciates it. He can only imagine how freeing it might feel for Oliver - but it feels liberating to Elio, too, to be able to have such an open conversation with him about things that, before this, were taboo between them by all accounts.

Oliver even told him about when he met with Jennifer to discuss proceedings. Elio bit his lower lip, but listened carefully; the thought of Oliver’s wife has kept him a prisoner, of his mind, of his feelings, for so long, and now he actively works not to let it be this way anymore.

Oliver didn’t want to be with her. There was something way bigger behind.

But while he fights one demon, another rears its head.

He’s with Matt. He shouldn’t care whether Oliver wants someone else. Should he?

“So, how is Matt?” Oliver asks. With perfect timing.

Elio wonders sometimes if he can read his mind.

“He’s okay,” Elio says, and takes another sip of his hot chocolate. The cup hiding his face for a moment feels like a reassuring shield.

“I thought you said you were going to let me know. About you, dating.”

Elio blinks, and looks up to Oliver.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

Elio waits for an answer, but it doesn’t come. When he glances at Oliver, he’s looking down, at his feet, as they walk.

It’s a mostly quiet walk back, apart from the occasional comment on the weather for the rest of the week, on their schedules, on how busy they’ll be with book and studying.

When they get back to their building Oliver looks into Elio’s eyes.

“I’m going to meet with my father this weekend. Tell him about the divorce.”

Elio swallows.He feels so nervous, for Oliver.

“Do you need any help? Want me to come with you?”

Oliver smiles, tenderly.

“No. Thank you, but no. I would never put you through that,” he says, and his voice is firm and decisive. Elio blinks, at the strong vein of protectiveness in Oliver’s words; it feels like a long, slow caress, it feels like Oliver’s warm hands sliding over his naked skin.

He feels just as protective, towards him.

“Will you let me know how it goes?” he asks.

Oliver nods, smiles.

“Of course.”

He reaches over and kisses Elio’s cheek, very briefly. And then walks away, towards the elevator.

Elio waits in the lobby, wisely choosing not to share the same elevator as him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Are you okay?” Matt asks, sat next to Elio on the couch.

It’s a Saturday morning, and they’re quietly reading their books - a busy two weeks of tests ahead for both of them. But Elio can’t stop fidgeting, looking towards the house phone.

“Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Oliver’s just- he’s telling his father about the divorce. Right now. I’m just - worried, for him.”

The distress has made it easy to be honest - and he really feels like he needs to talk to someone about it. And it’s always been easy to talk to Matt about anything.

Matt nods. His expression is open.

“Yeah, that stuff is quite scary. But it sounds like he’s doing better, he’s - taking a big step.”

“Yeah,” Elio agrees, absentmindedly. He only seems to realize that he’s talking to his boyfriend about his ex, quite casually as well, in that moment, and he looks at Matt’s eyes. But Matt seems okay.

“Why don’t you invite him to our thing, tonight? It’s only going to be a bunch of my friends anyway. You know they’re safe,” Matt says. “So I can finally get to meet him, properly.”

Elio’s eyes go wide. He bites his lower lip even harder; he can’t believe Matt just said that. That he’s okay with Oliver being included in the little last minute get together they’re having in their apartment that night.

He smiles big. “Really?” he feels he has to ask, in case he’s heard wrong, absurdly.

“Yeah. Why not.”

Elio nods, still smiling.

“Okay. Cool.”

He puts his book away, shuffles closer to Matt, and kisses him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elio’s laughing with Matt as they playfully fight over a cigarette to smoke outside the window in the kitchen, when Oliver arrives.

The party is in full swing, and Elio’s cheeks are pleasantly rosy already, but seeing Oliver makes him sober up, if only for a moment, his chest tightening.

He has only talked to him for a couple of minutes after Oliver’s conversation with his father, when Elio invited him to their place - and Elio is anxious to hear details.

“Hey,” Elio says, as Oliver walks further inside, in the kitchen. Matt’s hand still holding Elio’s; it’s what makes Elio remember he still needs to introduce them.

“Oliver, this is - this is Matt. Matt, Oliver.”

“We’ve - spoken, before,” Oliver says, a smile on his face, but his lips tight. “Hey, man.”

“Nice to meet you,” Matt shakes his hand. He turns to Elio. “Want another drink? I can get Oliver one, too.”

Elio nods. And Matt leaves them alone.

Elio knows it’s on purpose, so that Oliver can tell him what Elio wants to know.

“How did it go?”

“It was - hard, but it was fine. He did exactly what I thought. Raised his voice, said I was crazy. All as expected.”

Elio bites the side of his lip, shifts on his feet.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s done,” Oliver smiles again, albeit tightly.

“Does it mean he’ll...”

“Cut ties and stop speaking to me? Yeah. Probably. But I told him that this has nothing to do with any other person, or anyone I was seeing in Italy. This is who I am. And I just didn’t want to be married to her. I’m done lying.”

Elio blinks, still looking into Oliver’s eyes.

“Thank you - for doing that. But I’m not scared.”

His face is determined, and Oliver smiles, soft.

“I know. I know you’re not.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elio isn’t sure how long it’s been, but probably just about an hour or so, and he’s talking to one of Matt’s friends about being a newbie in New York, with Matt by his side, when Oliver walks up to them, and nudges his arm gently during a lull in the conversation.

“Hey. I’m going to go.”

“So early?” Elio knows he should be happy about Oliver coming at all; he knows that he’s trying, really hard, for him.

“I’m sorry. I have a lot to do for tomorrow. I have a lot to pack.”

Elio looks up.

“Pack?”

Is Oliver going somewhere?

“I - I’ve given notice to my landlord. Going to stay with my sister in Brooklyn for a while, while they find a new tenant, hopefully quickly.”

“You’re - moving out?” Elio asks, unnecessarily, but he’s really surprised, shocked even.

“I - have to. But - we can talk tomorrow, maybe? Or another day. I won’t be gone until the end of next week.”

Oliver seems calm; but Elio can see past that, can see the stormy blue in his eyes.

He can’t hide from Oliver, but Oliver can’t hide from him, either.

“Yeah. Okay.” He breathes. Still stunned.

Elio watches Oliver leave, until Matt, next to him, clears his throat. And Elio feels he has to say something.

“That was weird,” he babbles, looks at Matt. “I didn’t know he wanted to move out.”

“You should go.”

Elio feels like he almost heard wrong; and so he frowns, in confusion.

What?

“You should go. Go talk to him,” Matt says.

Elio searches his eyes.

“Are you - are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll be here when you come back.”

Elio smiles.

Briefly. Maybe, a little sadly.

And then he goes after Oliver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Oliver!” Elio calls after the older man, in the hallway, catches him just before he gets into the elevator.

Oliver stops; waits for him to walk closer.

“Matt seems like a really nice guy,” Oliver murmurs, smiling - but the blue in his eyes is still dark.

“Why are you moving out?” Elio just asks. “Is it because it reminds you of her?”

He knows this probably makes no sense, but honestly, his brain is panicked; can’t really think properly.

Oliver’s moving out, then maybe he’ll leave, move out of the city, Elio’s never going to see him again.

Oliver shakes his head, gently.

“No. No, of course not.” He sighs. “Elio, I already told you. I want you to be happy. You’re in a good place, you don’t - you don’t need me. Always around here, having to see me, like - like something from the past. Something old. It’s better this way.”

Elio frowns, sets his jaw.

“Is this about you?”

“What?” Oliver’s confused.

“Is this about you? Do you not want to see me?”

“Elio, no...”

“Because if you’re just trying to, protect me,” Elio doesn’t wait, “or, watch out for me, or whatever, then don’t. Stop doing what you think it’s best for me. I know what’s best for me.” A moment. “And I need the person I love. I need the person I love not to leave me.”

They’re both quiet, after that. Breathing hard. Elio looking at Oliver; tense.

“Are... are you sure?” Oliver’s voice is just a whisper.

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure. I’m done being without you. I’ve tried, but I’m done. And - and if you want me too, then -“

The storm has lifted from Oliver’s eyes, and Elio can swear he’s actually seen it happening, seen them turn light blue, the beautiful color he always sees when he dreams of Oliver.

“Of course. Of course I want you. Of course, I love you.”

The words float between them. Soft. Caressing.

Elio smiles, watches Oliver smile back.

Oliver reaches with his hand, to cup Elio’s cheek, stroke it with his thumb.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, tentatively.

Like that day, two years ago.

Elio closes his eyes for a moment.

“I want you to. But,” he swallows. “Not tonight.” And then, quieter: “I - I don’t want to cheat.”

He opens wide eyes on to Oliver, and Oliver smiles again, shakes his head.

“You’re so much better than me.”

“That’s what my father said you would say,” Elio chuckles, quietly, almost to himself.

Oliver looks at him, a light in his eyes.

“Tomorrow?”

And Elio smiles back, and nods.

“Tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and talk to me! I am @TeahousemoonAo3 on Twitter and I now also have a Tumblr - TeaHouseMoonAo3 (DMs are open!)
> 
> And of course, please do leave me a comment if you like this story :) xx


	24. Chapter 24

_I want to stay the whole night_

_I want to lay with you till the sun's up_

_I want to let you inside_

_Oh, heaven knows, I've tried..._

_\- Let You Love Me, Rita Ora_

 

 

 

 

 

Elio is not looking forward to speaking to Matt the next day, but it’s something he has to do.

He’s never really broken up with anyone, before.

His hands tremble as he walks to the kitchen, still in his pajamas, curls messy, having to blink to clear the sleep from his eyes. Matt wasn’t next to him when he woke up.

He finds him in the kitchen, drinking tea, and the other boy looks up at him as soon as he appears.

Elio takes a deep breath.

He doesn’t even know where to start.

“Here to tell me about what happened with Oliver last night?”

Leave it to Matt to try to make it as easy as possible for him. Elio smiles tightly, not a real smile, more just like an acknowledgement, a silent thank you.

“I,” he starts, stops again. “I don’t know where to start.”

“He loves you,” Matt supplies. “And you love him.”

Elio nods at both.

“Matt, you’re - it’s been, wonderful. You’re so good. You’re the best - you’ve been the best boyfriend,” he says, almost stammers, feels tears sting at his eyes at how his words don’t come out properly. Heprobably sounds very stupid; he feels stupid, for sure. Matt deserves so much better.

Matt gives him a little, tight, smile.

“And you know this isn’t about you. It’s just - I’m sorry, I - it’s fucked up. I’m fucked up. But I -“

“You’re in love with him, and you need to be with him,” Matt completes his sentence for him, when Elio hesitates, stumbling for the right thing to say.

He nails the simple truth.

“Yeah.” Elio almost chokes on the word as he swallows.

He watches as Matt nods again, and then turns around, places his mug back into the sink, without saying anything.

“I’m sorry,” Elio tries. Frozen on the spot.

For a moment, Matt doesn’t move; then he sighs, and turns back around, to face Elio.

“Don’t be.” He steps closer. With a hand, he brushes a curl back on Elio’s forehead - like he always does, like Elio is something delicate, made of crystal.

“I’ve loved being with you. You’re beautiful, and sexy. And so damn intelligent,” Matt continues. “Whatever I’ve done - it’s because you deserve it.”

Looking into Matt’s sad eyes right now Elio really doesn’t feel like he does deserve it, or anything, really. He’s breaking his own heart as well as Matt’s. But he knows he needs to be honest. Stripped bare; follow his heart.

He has a request, and he feels selfish, demanding, unfair, but he just needs to ask.

“I hope we can - I really hope we can stay friends. I really don’t want to lose you,” he says, his voice trembling.

Matt smiles.

“I always stay friends with my exes,” he replies, half a joke, but sincere, really.

And Elio laughs a little.

“Well, now I’m jealous,” he says, and Matt chuckles, too.

Elio takes a couple of steps more, until he’s really close to Matt, until he can take Matt’s hand with his, stroke it with his thumb.

“Thank you for - letting me talk to him. For understanding.”

Matt shrugs, minutely.

“What good would it have done if I had kept you from him?” he says. “It should be your choice to be with me. Just like it was mine to be with you.”

Elio blinks. He’s so impressed by Matt’s attitude. His maturity.

“I love you,” he tells him, sincerely.

And when Matt kisses him, then, it feels like he’s just released the biggest breath he’s ever breathed; he closes his eyes, opens his mouth, for a moment gives himself completely to him. Deepens the kiss, and Matt responds, and it’s slow and soft and intense, and Elio lets it go on for as long as Matt needs - until Matt ends it himself, with smaller pecks to Elio’s mouth.

“Just one thing,” Matt says then, looking Elio straight in the eyes. He sounds solemn. “He better not hurt you. Because if he does, I really, really don’t care that he’s the tallest fucker in the universe. I’ll still take him down.”

His tone is teasing, but there’s seriousness in Matt’s eyes - and Elio knows he’s not lying. At all.

Elio smiles; and then wraps his arms around Matt’s neck, hugs him tight to himself. In thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

After, Elio goes to his room. Locks the door.

He feels exhausted, and he needs some solitude.

He hides under his covers, trying to sleep, waiting for the day to end.

 

 

 

 

 

When he goes to Oliver, the day after, he hasn’t even checked first if the older man is home.

He goes to knock on his door with assuredness, though, and when Oliver answers he tells himself that of course, he knew he was home.

He can’t apologize for not coming to see him the day before, like they said; because they look at each other, a moment, and then a moment later they’re already kissing. Elio is on tiptoes, his arms around Oliver’s neck and his hands in Oliver’s hair, and Oliver’s large hands are on his lower back. They feel hot, burning, even through Elio’s shirt.

When Oliver breaks the kiss to kick the door closed, and turn the lock with a hand without letting Elio go with the other, Elio has to moan out loud.

It’s the first time he’s all alone with Oliver, after so many days, so many weeks, the first time he’s alone with him in his apartment, locked in, just them two. He hangs from Oliver’s neck and pulls up on tiptoes even more, kissing him with hunger. Moaning when Oliver’s hands slide to his backside, and squeeze.

The bedroom is too far, it seems too far, and so when Oliver guides him to the living room, to the couch, Elio doesn’t protest. Oliver lays him down onto it and then hovers over him, his whole, long body covering Elio from head to toe. He lays on top of him and Elio relishes the feel of Oliver’s weight on him, and how he has to open his legs to accommodate him, how he wants to buck up against him and how he wants to feel Oliver’s hands everywhere.

Oliver bites Elio’s lips, and then pulls up, takes Elio’s t-shirt off. He kisses along his collarbones, down to his sternum, licks to the right first and then to the left, to both his nipples. Sucks one, then the other into his mouth.

“Fuck,” Elio swears, arches his back.

Oliver feels familiar, known, safe, but also new. Completely new.

“Fuck me, Oliver.” If there’s something that hasn’t changed, it’s Elio’s eagerness for sex, for Oliver’s touch, for the feeling of Oliver possessing him heart, body and soul; and Elio isn’t even sheepish about it.

He looks up at Oliver, pupils blown, lips as red as blood.

One of Elio’s favourite things is when they kiss so intensely that he can actually taste it, the blood.

“I want to kiss you, first.”

Oliver’s words crackle on Elio’s skin, and he nods frantically, but that’s even before he realizes what Oliver means by that. The older man pulls his pants and underwear off, impatiently, and then strokes Elio’s thighs with broad hands, opens them.

The sensation of Oliver’s mouth between his legs, everywhere, makes Elio close his eyes, arch his back even tighter.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck.”

He missed this. He missed Oliver.

He missed him so much.

“I missed you too,” Oliver growls to him, and Elio understands then that he spoke out loud.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver speaks again. Repeats that, those three words, again and again against Elio’s naked, burning skin.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay,” Elio reassures.

It wasn’t okay, but it’s okay now.

Oliver’s tongue pushes inside; Elio arches back again, and his body is rigid with a fast approaching orgasm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their favorite moment while they make love is when Elio is on top, straddling Oliver, and they kiss.

Elio can’t stop looking into Oliver’s eyes; even though he feels sweaty, tired, sore right inside his belly. Delirious with pleasure. He needs to keep looking at Oliver, and Oliver looks back at him, his hair all mussed and crazy, with Elio’s fingers still tangled into the strands.

“I want you to be mine forever,” Oliver murmurs to him, mouth almost on Elio’s mouth.

“I am yours forever,” Elio replies.

He will always love Oliver. It’s just not even a question. No matter what happens.

Elio comes, and then, when Oliver does, too, Elio is still looking into his eyes, and smiling on his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re not moving out then?”

“No. Not for now, at least.”

Elio smirks.

“Not as long as I have a say in it.”

Oliver smirks too, nuzzles his cheek with his nose. They’re laying side by side down on the couch, naked. And thankfully there is enough room for the both of them.

“Bossy,” Oliver teases.

“But you’ve - cleaned up.” Elio is a little more tentative when he says this.

He had a look just now, when he went to the bathroom, after they’d untangled themselves from each other.

The flat is tidy; neat. No pictures, no trinkets, nothing that can seem to belong to anyone other than Oliver.

No trace of Jennifer.

“She took all her things. But yes, I - cleaned up.” Oliver kisses his shoulder. “I had high hopes... and I didn’t want you to step into - my old life.”

“High hopes, huh?” Elio teases.

“Mmh. Yeah. Thankfully, they were all fulfilled.” Oliver smiles, his eyes closed. Satisfied. Happy.

And Elio is happy, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we’re nearing the end!  
> I’m planning an epilogue, for now, which brings the story to 25 chapters in total.  
> But I’ve loved writing it, so if you have any suggestions as to what you’d like to still see, feel free to let me know on my Twitter (@teahousemoonAo3) or Tumblr (My username is the same, TeaHouseMoonAo3)
> 
>  
> 
> To the Matt fans! I am so happy you liked my original character. I like him too, and I would like to keep him. And write more about him. What do you think? Would you read it? (If it were an alternate ending, or a snippet of his and Elio’s relationship?) 
> 
> ANYWAY! THANK YOU SO MUCH for following this story, please PLEASE leave me a comment and tell me if you liked this chapter. I love reading your thoughts. 
> 
> Love from me xx


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

It’s a warm enough evening, for March in Northern Italy. 

Elio’s fingers draw patterns on Oliver’s face, gently - over his ear; into his hair; down to his cheek, to his lips; back up, to his neck. Oliver smiles, as they lie side by side on the bed in Elio’s childhood bedroom.

“So glad to be back here,” Oliver says. His voice warm, still thick with sleep. 

“So glad you’re back,” Elio responds.

And he means it in more than one way. He’s glad Oliver is here, back in Italy, after almost three years; he’s glad Oliver is back, in his life.

It’s been a month, a month after he broke it off with Matt, a month after he and Oliver reunited. After so much pain, fighting, sorrow and worries.

They’re still rebuilding. It’s still a work in progress.

But they’re happy.

Elio sighs.

“I do want to bring Matt here,” he says. Tentatively. His eyes fixed on Oliver’s mouth.

He’s using his low voice, that tone that’s husky, seductive; to soften his words.

Oliver sighs, a long, drawn out breath.

“It’s just because I told him so much about Italy. I told him about my parents. I want him to - see it.” Elio caresses Oliver’s lips with his index finger. “Just as friends.”

Oliver sighs again.

“Friends, huh?”

“You know we’re just friends.” Elio repeats, then hesitates a moment. “He’s important to me.”

Oliver looks at him for a long moment.

They’ve had this conversation before. Oliver is a jealous guy, normally, but - with Matt, he knows there’s more, there’s history. He knows how Matt looks after Elio, he can see it every time he’s in the apartment with them.

Elio knows that Oliver is grateful to Matt, for being so careful with Elio when Oliver isn’t around to do that himself; but it’s hard. He knows it’s hard.

He’d definitely go mad with jealousy if Oliver had someone like that, too - so he understands.

But they’re both learning, both working to understand each other better. To grow.

“Besides. Matt is seeing someone, now,” Elio tells him.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It feels - weird. Good, but weird. Like - being replaced.”

Elio stuns himself at the sincerity, the openness of his words; his heart is beating a little faster, but he’s proud he got the words out. He’s proud of their progress.

“I know,” Oliver says. Two words, so full of meaning.

Then he sighs again.

“Well. As long as you two don’t sleep in the same room,” he says, a glint in his eyes, his tone mischievous.

It makes Elio roll his eyes, chuckle.

“No, no we won’t. There’s two rooms, remember?”

“Mmmh,” Oliver makes a sound from his chest. “But you’ll have to share the bathroom.”

It’s a joke and it’s a reminder of what Elio said to Oliver that first day, when they first met, and Elio rolls his eyes again, his cheeks coloring.

And then Oliver tickles him; his big hands under Elio’s armpits, on his sides, they just have to lightly touch and Elio is in bits, squirming and laughing.

“Shhh, shh now,” Oliver teases, and grabs both of Elio’s wrists with a hand, pulls them up on the pillow over Elio’s head to hold him down.

“What is this racket, Elio Perlman? You’ll wake everyone.”

“I hate you,” Elio manages to breathe out, still shaken by giggles.

“No you don’t.” Oliver kisses him; still holding his arms down on the pillow, but now Elio laces the fingers of a hand with Oliver’s, surrenders.

Oliver’s hand slides along Elio’s body while they kiss - down to his ribs, to his flank. Between his legs. He pushes two fingers inside the boy, finds him still wet from when they used the lube earlier.

“Okay?” Oliver asks.

“Yeah,” Elio’s voice is rough. He kisses Oliver again, “I want all of your fingers inside me,” he husks.

“Mmh. Greedy.” Oliver’s voice is just as low, just as laced with desire as his, and he pushes his fingers deeper, with a third one joining, but only just. They’re in Elio’s parents’ house; they can leave the sexy games for when they get back to New York.

“Just come over here,” Oliver murmurs to him, letting go of his body, and laying back on the mattress, tapping Elio’s thigh with a finger. Elio moves to straddle him, slender legs bracketing Oliver’s hips.

“I love you,” Elio tells him, and kisses him, trying to position himself at the same time and this time, succeeding. They’re already so used to each other, so acquainted, their bodies slot together like they were always meant to be.

Elio knows Oliver always waits to feel the stretch in Elio’s body, the squeeze around his own. The resistance and then the smooth slide, Elio sitting down completely on his lap, and arching his strong, graceful back. Holding onto Oliver’s shoulders, tight.

Elio thought he was going to be the only one crying out, but Oliver echoes him, quieter, but all the same - a moan of pleasure and desire, that spurs Elio on to moving.

“I love you too,” Oliver says, lips against Elio’s chest and his eyes closed as the boy moves. His big hands are holding onto Elio’s hips, hard, and they don’t let go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Shit. I hope we weren’t too loud,” Elio whispers when it’s over, and they’re laying in bed, sweaty, catching their breaths.

“You always say this when we are in your parents’s house. After. I am having a huge feeling of Deja vu,” Oliver gently teases, while he cleans himself off with his pijama shirt. He’ll have to wear something else to sleep.

Even that is an echo of that night, that summer, when everything started and when they spent the whole night completely taken by their lovemaking.

Just like tonight, really.

Perhaps not with the same tint of awkwardness as that night, perhaps without the fear, and the both of them being nervous, Elio shaking.

Elio’s definitely not the person he was, three years ago.

He’s more experienced now, that’s for sure.

And Elio knows that Oliver is thinking the same thing right now.

“What is it?” he asks, nuzzles Oliver’s bicep with his nose as they lay back down side by side. 

“Just - just thinking about you. And us.”

“Mh. What about me? I’m right here.”

Oliver laughs. “I know.”

“Then what?”

“Do you like it?”

Elio hesitates.

“Do I like what?”

Oliver smiles, looks at the ceiling and then back at Elio. Acting all shy, and Elio frowns.

“Sex with me.”

The Elio of three years ago would have probably hidden his face into the pillow. Rubbed his eyes with his hand until they were red.

But this Elio just pulls up to lean on his elbow, to better look at Oliver.

“What? Of course I like sex with you.” He frowns, deeper. “Why are you asking this?”

This time it’s Oliver who’s the sheepish one, and the older man shakes his head, still looks at the ceiling, only chances one brief, fleeting glance at the boy next to him.

“I don’t know. You have - you have more, points of reference, now. Not like before.”

As he speaks, he doesn’t look at Elio. And it strikes Elio that - this time, right now, Oliver is insecure. Oliver - the man who was always so confident, so in control of himself and of the situation - this time is hesitating, because he thinks there could be something better than him to Elio.

Elio wants to laugh, but he knows that wouldn’t be good.

It’s further testament to how much he’s grown.

“I like you,” he says simply, quietly. He cups his hand around Oliver’s cheek, nudges him around to look at Elio. “I want you. I chose you.” He strokes Oliver’s lips with his thumb. “My body was made for you,” he says, simply.

He watches as Oliver smiles, and then moves to hover over Elio, still smiling down at him.

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

There’s always a frisson of heat going through Elio’s body at the thought that Oliver is jealous - but this is not just jealousy, and Elio chastises himself, because this echoes of fear and inadequacy and the terror they’d both experienced at the thought of having lost the other - Elio having lost Oliver to Jennifer, and Oliver having lost Elio to Matt.

So he leans up to kiss Oliver, closes his eyes a moment.

“I’ll be louder next time,” he says after, his eyes gleaming, with laughter. “Sorry I couldn’t be loud this time, but you know. My parents next door, and you told me to keep quiet. But next time - I’ll show you how much I like it.”

It makes Oliver chuckle; and then he smiles, big, tender. He looks into Elio’s eyes.

“I would never say no to that.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So. Are you happy?”

It’s a very loaded, not as easy as it sounds question, the one that Samuel asks Elio one morning, as they sit at the table outside, having breakfast, both being doted on by Mafalda. She breaks open a soft boiled egg for Elio and he bites his lip. She spoils him, now more than ever; he knows she misses him.

She’s like a second mother to him.

“Yeah,” he murmurs in response to his father’s question.

He left Oliver asleep in bed, and now he can’t wait for him to join them, can’t wait to see his handsome boyfriend again even though they’ve only just spent the night together. If that is not being happy, he doesn’t know what is.

“But you can tell me now, you know?” Elio says. He dunks a piece of bread in his egg and glances at Samuel out of the corner of his eyes. “I know it wasn’t by accident that I moved into that building.”

Samuel looks at him; smiling. Like the cat that got the cream. He isn’t even apologetic, not one bit - and Elio can’t find it in himself to complain. Not one bit.

“Well, it wasn’t all me. The idea came from your mother, actually,” he says, eyes gleaming, towards Annella who is coming out from the kitchen. 

“What am I being blamed for?” She asks, cup of coffee in hand. But her eyes are smiling, too.

“When you were looking for accommodation in Manhattan. That day, we’d just spoken to Oliver. He’d asked about you. And after, you asked about him. Pretending you didn’t care,” Samuel recalls. “So then your mother said we could have a look and see if any of the apartments in Oliver’s building were being rented out to students.”

“Right,” Elio nods.

His parents never hide anything from him - but he’s happy they did, in this case. It was difficult; painful, at times. But he’s glad fate got a little help from them.

“We didn’t say anything. We thought it was better to - leave it to chance. Alla fortuna,” Annella only says.

She smiles down at Elio; and he smiles back. A silent ‘thank you’ to both of them.

“Good morning.”

Oliver, finally, appears at the door, looking rested, relaxed. Happy, at the sight of the breakfast laid out in the garden, at the sight of Samuel, Annella, and Elio all sitting together - and it feels like that first time. 

Only better. Because now, he walks over, and kisses Elio on the mouth, right there in the open.

Because now, they’re finally together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go! The end. Sorry it took me a few days to update, but I’ve had the flu and that’s kind of delayed all my plans. But now the epilogue is finally here - and I hope you like it! Please let me know in the comments! 
> 
>  
> 
> Also - I am finding it hard to let go of this story. But - if I were to re-write it from Oliver’s point of view - so we can see what happened, from his side of things... would this be something you’d want to read? 
> 
> Thank you again for all the love. I love you all right back!! Xx


	26. Christmas Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post a little present for you, whether or not you celebrate Christmas... I hope you are all doing well. 
> 
> This is Elio, Oliver, a little jealously, a little smut, Matt, Ash, Annella and Samuel.  
> I hope you enjoy ;) ! Xx

It’s late morning on Christmas Day, and Elio, Matt and Ash are on the couch in their apartment, mugs of coffee and tea in their hands, a dismantled pandoro on the coffee table waiting to be finished.

“You have sugar everywhere. On your cheek even,” Matt tells Elio, and laughs. Elio runs a finger on his face to remove the sugar and then reaches out, smears it all over Matt’s face instead.

“Hey!” Matt protests, tries to swat him away, but he’s laughing, too. His coffee is safe, but only just.

“How do you guys have so much energy,” Ash grumbles, his eyes still half closed. “Fuck, I wanted to sleep.”

He had to wake up because he’s meeting his mother later, who now lives in New Jersey with her new boyfriend. Of course he’s told them everything about it, whining - and Elio still wants to giggle at the thought.

“I’m sure your mother has presents for you. Think about it that way,” Elio tries to cheer him up.

“Ugh.” Ash isn’t cheered. “I’m hungover.”

Matt rolls his eyes, he knows Ash can’t see him, and then casts his gaze back on Elio.

They wanted to have Christmas breakfast together as roommates - or a sort of, anyway, as of course they aren’t organised or serious about it. It’s just coffee, and the pandoro from Elio’s parents which Elio has insisted they absolutely try. They love it - though Ash loves it even more smothered in strawberry jam.

Elio spent the night in Oliver’s apartment but came back for this. They’ll meet again later - for lunch, with Samuel and Annella who are spending the holidays in New York. They don’t celebrate Christmas, but it’s nice to look at the lights and decorations, meet Elio’s roommates - and of course, see Oliver.

“Next year we’re playing tombola,” Elio announces.

“I don’t know what that is, but I’m going back to sleep,” Ash says. Curls up right there on the couch, and a moment later, he’s already snoring.

“Okay,” Matt says, half-exasperated, half-amused. “I’ll have to remember to wake him up...”

Elio laughs. “Yeah. Sorry I can’t help, I have to get ready for lunch with Oliver and my parents soon.”

“Nah, it’s okay.”

Elio bites his lip.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright? Do you want to come to lunch with us? Everyone would love it if you came,” he asks, in one breath. Matt is also seeing his parents and extended family later, but Elio hates to think of Matt alone in the apartment until then, just with hungover Ash.

“Everyone?” Matt’s voice is gently teasing. 

Elio rolls his eyes.

“Yes, of course, everyone.”

He knows it’s not completely true. Oliver is still a little jealous, when Matt is concerned. Which is interesting, since Elio and Matt are roommates still.

And despite him not having any reason to be jealous, or to doubt either of them. Matt respects their relationship; he always has.

Oliver and Elio have talked about moving in together, but they don’t want it to be in Oliver’s old apartment, the one he shared with Jennifer. There’s still too many memories in there, too much of her in it, and not in a good way. They want to start fresh.

Oliver is moving into a new apartment, in the same building, in a couple of weeks; but Elio has still asked them to wait. He wants to go slow, this time; savor their relationship. The progression of it. Really get to know Oliver, and he wants Oliver to get to know him, slowly.

They see each other practically every day, anyway, of course.

“I have to get ready,” Elio tells Matt a little guiltily. “Will you be okay with Mr Hungover here?”

Matt chuckles. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Elio goes to get ready, and comes back half an hour later, all decked out for lunch. He’s wearing a high neck dark blue sweater, over blue-jeans and black boots. His hair is longer and brushed back so that his curls are left in gentle swirls down at the tips.

“Okay. So, I’m going,” he announces, and grabs his long coat and puts it on, a pop of light brown over his dark colored outfit. He steps closer to Matt, who’s still on the couch, nursing another cup of coffee and watching TV, and kisses his cheek. “Merry Christmas.”

Matt smiles. “You look gorgeous.”

Elio smiles back, and then leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oliver seems to echo Matt’s sentiment exactly, because he takes Elio into his arms as soon as he sees him, outside of the restaurant, and kisses his temple, his cheek, making him giggle.

“I wish I could kiss you properly,” he whines, playfully.

“Me too,” Elio says sincerely, looking up into Oliver’s eyes.

Oliver looks stunning too. He has a little bit of stubble on his face, on his jaws and around his lips, and it always rubs and reddens Elio’s skin when they kiss and kiss. Elio loves it.

Annella and Samuel are already waiting for them at their table, and beam megawatt smiles when they see they’ve arrived. Annella hugs each of them for minutes and minutes.

“You saw me yesterday, Mom,” Elio laughs against her cheek, and kisses her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So we thought of something,” Samuel says at the end of their meal, after they’ve had their obligatory espresso. Elio’s had panna cotta for dessert, and it had cherries on top, and he’s really feeling his sugar rush now. He and Oliver have been holding hands under the table for most of the lunch.

“We thought, since we have so many things planned, and we’ll have to meet tomorrow morning - it would be great if you stayed at the hotel, too. If you want to, of course.”

Elio’s eyes widen. “What?”

“We’ve booked the other suite. For you. Our present.”

Samuel is so pleased with himself that his smile has become as wide as ever, and next to him, Annella smiles too, the corners of her perfect lips turned up.

“Oh, Samuel, you didn’t have to!” Oliver says; genuinely taken aback. 

He looks at Elio. The boy is smiling, and his cheeks have colored.

“Nonsense! It’ll be easier tomorrow, so we can go out and explore, bright and early.”

There’s an evident tinge of amusement in Samuel’s voice. Of course, it’s a facade. They’ll be able to relax and sleep in as much as they want. All of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their suite is, of course, wonderful, and Elio jumps on the bed first thing, testing the softness of the comforter. It feels amazing.

He’s just hung up the phone. He left a voicemail at his apartment, to tell Ash and Matt he wouldn’t be back until the day after.

Oliver crawls on the bed with him, over Elio, cages him between his arms. The white of the sheet contrasts so stunningly with the curls of Elio’s raven hair.

Elio reaches up to stroke Oliver’s cheek. 

“You should have joined us for breakfast, today.”

“Ah,” Oliver mumbles. He kisses the corner of Elio’s mouth. “But then I wouldn’t have been able to kiss you.”

Elio stares.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to make Matt uncomfortable,” Oliver says. And kisses Elio’s chin.

“He’s not uncomfortable. He’s happy for us.”

“Yeah. I don’t think anyone would like to see their ex canoodling with his boyfriend right in front of them.”

He kisses Elio’s throat, and the boy squirms.

“Right. Or maybe you’re projecting?”

Oliver stops, and looks at him, right in the eyes, his own blue ones flashing.

“I would die of jealousy if that was me.”

Elio stares back. Oliver’s tone, so intense; it makes a shiver run through Elio’s whole body. He feels hot, all of a sudden. He wants their clothes off.

“Fuck me?” he breathes, forces himself to hold Oliver’s gaze.

He loves how Oliver’s body covers his own, whole. Oliver could crush him, hold him down, do whatever he wants to him. He’s so much stronger.

Elio adores it.

“You don’t have to ask.”

They are too frantic to undress completely.

Like in a silent agreement, they quickly take off their trousers and underwear, and Oliver stares intensely, making Elio’s insides boil and burn, as he pushes two fingers inside Elio’s mouth and watches him suck on them.

There’s nothing tender about the way Oliver goes to breach his body and Elio arches back, tenses slightly, relishes the pinch. They kiss through it, while Oliver relaxes him and prepares him, until he’s got four fingers in his body and Elio’s breathing hard against Oliver’s mouth, eyes screwed shut. They have the whole night to be slow, languid and wanton, right now they just want to take and be taken. And so Oliver grabs the lube, uses it on Elio and himself, and then helps the boy wrap his thighs around Oliver’s hips as he thrusts in. Bottoms out.

“Fuck,” Elio groans. “Oh, fuck.”

Oliver doesn’t wait, and moves right away, deep but urgent, breathing loud against the side of Elio’s throat.

“I love you,” Elio tells him, even though he can feel that Oliver is too far gone to think, too far gone to react to anything that isn’t the pleasure Elio’s body is giving him.

Oliver comes inside of the boy, no condoms, they got tested, they’re okay, and Elio moans, and comes too, it feels so good. So good.

 

 

  

 

“I love you,” Elio hears Oliver whisper against his temple, a little later. He’s almost dozing off, cradled in Oliver and the soft sheets.

They might not celebrate Christmas; but this is, all the same, the best Christmas ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, please let me know in a comment! I might write more snippets if and when they come to me. 
> 
> I don’t particularly like Christmas generally, but I liked to think of our beloved characters celebrating this way. Hope you liked it too. 
> 
> Ps. For Elio’s outfit, you can imagine him looking like this: 
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/p/BrhKswiABkH/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1xxynx7ftr6i3
> 
> I think that’s definitely grown up Elio in New York <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [【授权翻译】【Translation with Permission】 61号公寓/Apartment 61 by TeaHouseMoon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975362) by [ling904](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ling904/pseuds/ling904)




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